


wind that shakes the seas and stars

by oriflamme



Series: robots. robots everywhere [18]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Cultural Speculation, F/F, F/M, Humans Are Completely Irrelevant In IDW Transformers Thanks For Coming to My TED Talk, M/M, Mind melds, Multi, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Politics, Possession, Till All Are One, True Form Starscream, Unicron: Voring Cybertron For The Greater Good Since 1986, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-05-05 02:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 129,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14607363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oriflamme/pseuds/oriflamme
Summary: Windblade and her new planet.Oh, and all her other problems.Liege Maximo's still on the loose, Starscream's an idiot, Optimus Prime wants to annex Neo-Cybertron, the Mistress of Flame wants her head, Trypticon's applied for a seat in the Council of Worlds, and nothing - absolutely nothing - seems to run smooth.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note - _wind that shakes the seas and stars_ will not make sense without first reading _[the ways of the stars undone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13732176/chapters/31549965)_. This is a canon divergent AU from the start of the TAAO Annual, where Windblade more or less kicked herself off the Council because Vigilem continued to exist in her spark rather than possessing her brain module, and things escalated rapidly from there until Unicron arrived. 
> 
> The other stories included in [the triumph of time](https://archiveofourown.org/series/829167) series are loosely related and contain worldbuilding concepts and characters that turn up here, but [we had stood as the sure stars stand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12161907) is the most relevant.

\---

_Strange, I think to myself, how we have seen so much death in the wars and we know that two million of us have fallen in vain - how come we are so stirred up by this one man and have almost forgotten those two million? But that's just how it is, because one man is always the dead - and two million is always just a statistic._

_-_ Erich Maria Remarque of Earth, <<[The Black Obelisk](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1297123.The_Black_Obelisk)>>

\---

Metroplex comes to rest on the northern continent.

It's difficult to scout a suitable location to settle the template world. Rodimus, when he slows long enough to speak to, calls it the Necroworld without explanation. Nautica is more accessible: she explains what the continent-spanning fields of statues and flowers represent, and when Windvoice looks down from orbit, she absorbs the vast grey fields - visible from _outer space_ \- that number Cybertron's billions of dead with a shuddering spark. When the flowers were still blue with spark energy, it shone like an ocean of Camien blood.

It's too much. It's so - so much. So much death, so much waste, so much _loss_ , and Windvoice still can't comprehend a war like that. It's so far beyond anything Caminus ever experienced that her processor stalls out, trying to absorb the stark numbers that Rewind and Repository provide. 

"A million is a statistic," Starscream drawls, sprawled out beside one of Vigilem's tall windows. His violet optics are full of mockery and mirth as he watches her flounder. "A billion is just a bigger statistic. You're not special."

The more callous Cybertronian refugees dismiss the spark flower fields as irrelevant. They're more interested in Windvoice making good on her promise of a new home world, and don't have patience with her insistence they avoid Censere's fields. Too many millennia of war and suffering have hardened them; they're inured to the horrific scope of the tragedy laid out beneath them because they _lived_ it. They confront her about the delay, and when Windvoice meets their accusing stares she can see the bitter, frustrated apathy drilled into them by war. 

Understanding hurts. For so long, she skated along the surface of Cybertron's politics without fully understanding the _pain_ in every person she met. They've been hurt, and hurt each other in turn, in an endlessly recursive cascade.

Censere's work is a piercing, holy thing, sacred in a way few things can truly be. It's not Windvoice's pain, but she respects it and she refuses to trample it. Metroplex descends from orbit with great care and unfolds into citymode on a stretch of untouched earth, an hour's flight or so from the memorial fields.

The trip from Cybertron's old solar system to the template drained him of his strength, and he lands harder than he should. The city crushes a wide expanse of organic matter under its weight as Metroplex transforms. He needs manual assistance to unfurl his solar panel arrays and turn them toward the new sun. The buildings that expand out of his torso, once integrated with the reclaimed ruins of Iacon, bear new strain marks from the long voyage. 

Cityspeakers Honora, Crossflare, and Quickswitch assist Windvoice as she coaxes Metroplex through the drawn-out process of transforming. Though the three cityspeakers sent to tend Metroplex are some of the most experienced of their sect, a shard of melancholy sticks in Windvoice's chest when she realizes she can't trust them. Honora, older even than the Mistress of Flame and stooped with age, old enough that her energon still bleeds more purple than blue, bows her helm in reverence whenever Windvoice joins them. But Quickswitch watches her with frosty optics and a bitter twist to his mouth, and Windvoice would bet her life that he reports everything she does back to Caminus from the moment they re-establish communications with the colony worlds. Crossflare seems torn, and rather than confronting the division, spends most of her time interpreting Metroplex's basic level glyphs for the benefit of the cityspeaker trainees and attendants.

When the Mistress of Flame recalls them, Windvoice lets the cityspeakers go without protest. Lightbright refuses the call of her own accord, and falls in step beside Windvoice with a quiet smile.

It tears something inside her.

Metroplex understands. His melancholy operates on a deeper level than Windvoice's, drawn from the abyssal currents of his vast processor. He mourns Cybertron so profoundly that Windvoice nearly chokes on the guilt in her throat.

But Vigilem understands better.

And that scares her more than she can say.

-

It takes a year before things reach the breaking point.

-

"I can speak with Metroplex, if you need me to," Lightbright offers. 

She doesn't offer to speak with Vigilem in Windvoice's place. Vigilem has made his opinion on that _very_ clear.

Windvoice shakes her head as she and Lightbright step out the government building and into the sunlight. After a year of rapid industrial expansion, the air is still tinged with the strange, thick scent of organic plant matter. It overpowers the familiar smell of oil and sun-heated metal in a way that reminds her of Eukaris. Despite their best efforts, some of the cyberorganic hybrid plants have crept into Metroplex's streets, their dull blue biolights flickering in the grooves of organic bark.

"No, it's fine. You work on the distribution network expansion from here. I'll ask Metroplex how it's going on his end."

"Yes ma'am," Lightbright says, with a half-joking salute, and then transforms to head out along Metroplex's central roadway, toward the outskirts of Censere.

Shaking her head, Windvoice rolls her shoulders and falls into alt mode. Taking wing, she crests sharply over the reaching fronds of a cybertree, and curves over the city toward Metroplex's central processor.

-

Delegating is hard. It's hard, and Windvoice has no less than four second-in-commands floating around her at any given time. Lightbright is indispensable in handling the day-to-day minutiae of maintaining Metroplex's infrastructure, and the fledgling city of Censere wrapped around him. Ironhide keeps the peace. Wheeljack helps liaise with the scientific community - an essential role, considering the fact that Neo-Cybertron's scientific community now includes Shockwave, Killmaster, and Brainstorm, all operating under a shaky truce in the name of mildly (read: extremely) terrifying science. 

And then there's Starscream. 

Dear Solus, there's Starscream.

It's more ominous when he's acting genuinely helpful than it was when he was in charge of the whole planet, and that's saying something. Abdicating and immediately throwing his support behind Windvoice allowed both of them to survive the transition between Cybertron and Neo-Cybertron intact, denying Elita-1 the traction she'd needed to imprison them for freeing Vigilem and the Mistress of Flame any chance at extraditing Windvoice. But it also conveniently let Starscream's shadier dealings slip under the radar. 

Now, he's too well embedded in Neo-Cybertron's political body for her to remove. Worse, he's too... _helpful_. Even if he is a smug, sarcastic aft about it. Every other day he swaggers into her office, dumps a fresh heap of datapads on her desk, and spends an hour gossiping, making snarky comments on her latest public appearance, and explaining how he thwarted four different plots to undermine her authority before breakfast.

He may or may not be exaggerating. She honestly can't tell.

He also may or may not be flirting. _She honestly can't tell._

(At some point he replaced Rattrap with a chipper young Velocitronian assistant named Transmutate. She beams at Windvoice under Starscream's wingspan with earnest admiration whenever they're in the same room, and periodically offers her a variety of stimulants that are incrediblyillegal on Velocitron. So illegal that Windvoice breaks out into cold condensation whenever she's within ten meters of Transmutate's office.)

Despite her misgivings, delegating to Lightbright, Wheeljack, Ironhide, and Starscream keeps the sheer volume of workit takes to run two cities from overwhelming her. It helps her find time each day to speak to both Metroplex and Vigilem in person. No one else on the planet can understand Titans as easily as she can; carrying a Titan in her spark came with perks, and earned her Vigilem's good will, and solved so many problems when Unicron came bearing down on Cybertron.

It also created so many moreproblems in turn. Most notably earning them all Elita-1's undying hostility. The Carcerians cling to their council world status, and their shuttles loiter around Luna-2 enough that Starscream's sent Windvoice ten flagged comms in all caps and bright red text warning her _not_ to let them establish a colonial footing on Neo-Cybertron's semi-sentient moon under any circumstances.

And then there's the Mistress of Flame.

She's not looking forward to the Council meeting later today. Not in the least because they've invited Optimus.

-

[You seem distracted,] Vigilem says, so that only Windvoice can hear. 

The Carcerians maintained him well over the long years. They sacrificed their own frames to keep their prison ship whole. Compared to Metroplex, battered and depleted by war, Vigilem is in excellent condition. So excellent, technically, that he does not need a cityspeaker to interpret for him. From the moment Windvoice uploaded his mind from her spark to his new processor, Vigilem was free. 

It still feels strange to speak to a Titan and _hear_ the answer. 

Windvoice holds her daily meeting with Vigilem within his processor chamber. She doesn't _need_ to, but it's force of habit. His voice emits from the walls around her, low and always faintly tinged with amusement. 

He's closed the chamber doors and put them on lockdown. They both understand why.

She lets her optics drift over the red, cursory glyphs that project from his mind. While Metroplex displays all of his thoughts in a desperate bid to communicate with his cityspeakers, and Caminus behaves similarly in his ancient coma, Vigilem keeps most of his thoughts to himself. [Welcome] and [Windvoice] flicker across his mind in deep orange, but Windvoice suspects those are only what he _wants_ her to see. 

She can't blame him for being cagey. If he projected more thoughts, she could interpret them even more quickly than she does Metroplex's. Starscream claims it's suspicious. She thinks silence is the only refuge Vigilem had when the Carcerians chained his conscious mind. He hasn't betrayed them - yet - and until Vigilem shows signs of breaking their truce, Windvoice wants to believe in him. The ceasefire between Vigilem and Metroplex rests entirely on this; if it fails, Neo-Cybertron is an open target.

And in a contest between Metroplex and Vigilem, Metroplex _would not win_.

So. She trusts. Between Vigilem and Starscream, that's all she has left.

"Optimus Prime is coming from Earth for the Council meeting today. Preparing for that has been - stressful," Windvoice says, with an edge of exasperation she only lets slip around her seconds and her Titan allies. She already receives too many pointed questions concerning Starscream's continued involvement in the government. Word that she's frustrated with Optimus Prime himself would unleash a furious wave of rumors and alienate people she _really_ does not need to alienate right now. 

When Vigilem's mind remains blank, she turns to watch one of the holo projections the Titan displays around the inner walls. It shows a wide view of the template world and its two moons, the dark expanse of space filled with tiny glyphs of calculations and sensor readings. The blue, green, and silver surface of Neo-Cybertron burns with life, organic and Cybertronian, in a way the old, dead Cybertron never could.

The sight steadies her resolve. The Council has spent a year questioning and re-examining Windvoice's decision to allow Unicron to swallow Cybertron whole - questioning her judgement, her sanity. They won't know for hundreds of thousands of years if the smelted metal of old Cybertron is successfully reforged within the hollow template world.

But from up here, in Vigilem's lonely orbit - it was worth it. 

It has to be. She'd bleed out her own spark to make it so.

Vigilem rumbles, a dismissive grunt that vibrates through the floor. [This is the one who annexed some organic backwater? Tch. A poor excuse for a Prime.]

_You're not really one to talk,_ Windvoice thinks.

The subject of Liege Maximo very politely never comes up in their conversations. Vigilem politely ignores the fact that Chromia and Arcee are still hunting his Liege, and Windvoice politely ignores the fact that Vigilem remains loyal to Liege Maximo on a level she can't touch.

[Your second has expressed his concerns. Volubly,] Vigilem continues, and the Titan's atmosphere shifts around the fringes of Windvoice's awareness. If Vigilem were capable of it, she imagines he would be pacing, watching her with narrowed eyes.

A pang runs through her. "You've been speaking with Starscream?"

Starscream took charge of shooting down petitions from refugee groups who hoped to inhabit Vigilem while they were still en route to the Necroworld. Windvoice would've denied them anyway - Vigilem isn't interested in being inhabited, among other considerations - but Starscream was _adamant_ that no one set foot on Vigilem unless they have a damn good reason. He had a presentation on it and everything, and seemed vexed when Windvoice approved it without letting him pull it up.

Windvoice hadn't realized that Starscream was visiting Vigilem at all. Something to ask him about.

The amusement in Vigilem's voice deepens. [We have some...common ground,] he says, which explains nothing at all.

A glyph flares and fades on the surface of his mind as he shuffles his exterior plating in an immense shrug. The atmosphere shifts again, almost imperceptibly, and Windvoice can feel the Titan peering at her with speculative sensors. [For the record, how likely do _you_ think it that this pathetic Prime will move against you?]

And isn't that the million-credit question? 

Windvoice didn't want to be in power - but Starscream left a messy vacuum. The people called on her, and Elita-1 and the Mistress of Flame made refusal dangerous.

She's less worried about Optimus Prime than she is about what those two would use him for.

She knocks the back of her head against the wall, sighs, and tells the truth. "I don't know. Once, I would have thought that if he did interfere, he must surely know best. A Prime must be wise, right?"

Vigilem's chuckle rolls under her, deep in his internals rather than an audible vocalization. She ignores him. "But even before Unicron came, Optimus treated Cybertron's leadership like an inconvenience to him. When he was countering Starscream, I didn't examine it too deeply." 

She'd welcomed it, in fact. Encouraged it. The Council of Worlds owes its current structure to the political pressure Optimus applied against Starscream. His influence prevented Starscream from dominating the relationship between Cybertron, Caminus, and the other Titan colony worlds. It let them have equal representation, and put checks on Starscream that thwarted any hope he had of forming a Cybertronian empire.

[But now, of course, he's _your_ problem,] Vigilem says. 

She's heard the same line from Starscream, in almost those exact words. Starscream is more sarcastic about it.

And they're not wrong. Trouble on Earth kept Optimus distracted this past year, which gave Neo-Cybertron time to set up and stabilize. But now that his annexed territory is firmly under his control, Optimus has made it increasingly clear that he disapproves.

Of what, exactly, Windvoice isn't sure. Everything, maybe. He essentially invited himself to Neo-Cybertron for this meeting, and she saw no reason to deny him access to what remains of his homeworld. She's not looking forward to his judgement.

She folds her arms and faces the holoscreen again. Under the template's vibrant crust lays several hundreds of thousands of trillions of tons' worth of rich molten metal - all that Cybertron was, and more, enriched by the minerals and energy harvested by Luna-1 and Luna-2 after they abandoned the dead world. 

And deeper, in the center of the liquid metal – Vector Sigma, and the Forge. The living spark of the world, made anew in Unicron's massive smelter. 

Optimus won't be able to disapprove of that. Windvoice wants to believe that when Optimus arrives, he'll be less aloof than he sounds over long-range comms. She knows that he's been in close contact with the Mistress of Flame over the past year, though - a thought that makes Windvoice queasy. 

But that's her own fault. 

"I used him against Starscream myself, by introducing him to Caminus the way I did," she says, hugging herself. Hindsight is a pair of perfectly-tuned optics. "I warned Optimus that they would view him as a holy figure, and then I took advantage of that fact. Now, if Optimus sides with the Forgefire Parliament and Elita, they're one step closer to -"

Abruptly and forcefully remembering who she's talking to, Windvoice snaps her vocalizer off.

Too late. Vigilem's attention focuses on her like a microscope. His voice emerges, quiet and intent, right beside her ear. [If Elita is becoming problematic -]

She shoves away from the wall. " _No_."

A pause, and a hum. [As you wish.]

As if she needed to give him another excuse. Windvoice rubs her temple; her fingers brush the folded edge of the Lathe, and she sighs, staring moodily out another holoscreen.

"Any idea how to talk to the moons?" she asks, after the uncomfortable silence draws out long enough.

No. Not uncomfortable. They understand each other too well for that.

Vigilem accepts the subject change without missing a beat. [Why would you want to? They're terribly dull,] he says. With a careless flicker of indigo glyphs, he helpfully zooms in the holoscreen to center on Luna-1, just visible around the edge of Neo-Cybertron. Another screen pulls up a projection of Luna-2, on the far side of the planet. 

She takes a moment to roll his words over in his processor. It's easier to read Metroplex's thoughts than it is to pick apart what Vigilem leaves unsaid. "But you _can_ speak to them," she says, rephrasing it. " _You_ can."

A quiet note of approval tinges the Titan's voice. But he still sounds indifferent to the idea. [As I'm sure Metroplex can. But Luna-2's processors operate on a level even we Titans find overwhelming. And Luna-1 is quite mad, of course.]

He tosses the last part out there almost flippantly. As though the news that one of their moons is insane wouldn't send Starscream screeching through the streets. Windvoice folds her arms and shoots Vigilem a reproving glare. "Mad in a way we need to worry about? The last thing we need is for Starscream to demand we jettison the moons into the sun." _Again._

[Mad in a lonely way,] Vigilem says. [It traveled very far, covered in corpses and the stillborn.]

For a moment, Windvoice can feel the silence beneath her feet; an entire ship, perfectly still, from the engines down.

The Titan's engines and stabilizers click back on. [But that's none of my business. Take it up with Metroplex, if you must.]

Windvoice shudders. She hadn't realized she'd frozen in place to match Vigilem's stillness. She chafes her arms with her hands. "I'll need to speak to Fortress Maximus about it," she says, injecting a note of humor into her voice. "And Metroplex. Though who knows when I'll find the time, with the Prime's state visit."

[Trust you to reach out to someone who never asked for it.] Vigilem rumbles, nudging the bottom of her foot with a ripple of metal. A shrill whine fills the room –

\- and the ship _slams_ out from under Windvoice's feet. The impact knocks her down and she rolls hard, her right wing shrieking in protest. The holoscreens fizzle out, leaving the chamber with only ambient lighting. Emergency clamps shoot out of the floor and ceiling to cradle Vigilem's processor as the whole world rattles.

Windvoice hits the wall with a hiss. The floor and walls catch her, settling her on her feet before she can tumble again.

Vigilem's voice thrums with anticipation. [You may want to postpone that, however. We have company.]

"Compan-" 

Another shock wave rocks the ship. Vigilem's grip keeps Windvoice from slamming into the wall but the impact whips her head around, and she shouts. "Vigilem! What's wrong?!"

The anticipation in his voice inches up a notch, into true excitement. [Trypticon is here,] Vigilem says, his mind awhirl with red and violet glyphs and [warsong] as he brings integrated guns to bear. A holoscreen flares beside Windvoice, tracking trajectory, outlining the strange, rust-riddled, amorphous form of a creature against the dark void, its ancient engines chugging with palpable force as Trypticon draws alongside the planet with another sonorous _boom_ -

"Wait! Are we under attack?" she demands, trying to elbow her way free. Vigilem's safety restraints wind around her like a vice, or a living seat.

And then, as abruptly as it started, the tremors stop.

Windvoice dangles there for a long second, her free leg kicking for purchase. Vigilem's grip slowly withdraws, the metal panels of the floor sinking back into place. He sets her down, and the holoscreen follows the turn of her helm, the eager battle calculations reluctantly winding down as Trypticon falls into an orbital trajectory ahead of Vigilem.

His disappointed sigh rolls through the chamber. [No. What a shame. He's broadcasting to everyone in earshot.]

"What does he want?" she asks, drinking in the grim sight on Vigilem's screen.

A harsh roar of Old Cybertronian blares through the speakers. Windvoice winces as the guttural, incomprehensible accent grates in her audials. She's heard worse, but it's a close call. 

Vigilem translates. [It would appear that he is following my example. Trypticon requests membership within the Council of Worlds for himself and his...children.] His voice falls oddly flat on the final word - Vigilem doesn't have much fondness for his own.

Children? 

Oh no.

With a groan, Windvoice smacks her forehead with her palm. "Today? Today of all days?" The idea of presenting an application from _Trypticon_ in addition to the one from Earth is just...absurd. "I'll - add his application to the agenda. I suppose."

A sonorous chuckle reverberates through Vigilem. A few of the panels around the chamber rattle out of sync - the remains of some long-dead Vigilant, out of tune with the rest of the metal. 

[Oh, this will be... _interesting_.]

\------

_oh, darling._

_against the pull of a supernova i am_

_nothing but ash._

\- a.c., <<[three reasons why it wouldn't work out between us](http://lostcap.tumblr.com/post/101760943493/i-she-is-born-of-war-she-speaks-the-language-of)>>

\---

A fresh emergency waits for her when Windvoice returns to planetside. Naturally. 

Wheeljack radiates a silent apology from the end of the shuttle's gangway as Rodimus ambushes her. Starscream is a step behind Wheeljack, radiating something that's the fundamental _opposite_ of an apology. 

Whatever you call it, it feels smug. 

"Emergency. Code K. We need to deal with him, _stat_ ," Rodimus says, motoring along at top speed with complete confidence, despite the fact that nothing he says makes any sense.

Windvoice resets her optics. She doesn't have a clue what Code K means. A few other members of the _Lost Light_ 's crew join them as Rodimus propels her across the landing pad, a crowd of worried, serious faces: Nautica, Velocity, Drift, Cyclonus, and Whirl. Cyclonus's face is a ruin of shredded metal, and Whirl has a claw locked around his wrist like a lifeline.

She makes a particular point of knowing all of them on sight. The _Lost Light'_ s crew are...er. Unusual would be a polite word for it. Strange, inexplicable events and impossible things seem to actively seek them out - usually with explosive consequences. The one time she hinted that Starscream could supervise them - a chance to expand his unofficial powerset that he would normally leap at - he backed out of her office, into the hallway, out of the government building, and across the road, shaking his head all the way.

Wheeljack accepted the responsibility instead, with the mournful air of a mech mentally planning his own funeral rites.

Now, the tension between them is almost tangible. If Wheeljack and Starscream are both pawning it off onto her, that can only mean something dire's happened. Windvoice straightens her shoulders and braces for the bad news. "What happened?" she asks Nautica, who she can trust to give her a straight answer.

" _Killmaster_ happened," Rodimus bursts in, before Nautica can reply. There's a jarring edge of impatience in his tone that chafes against Windvoice in a way she can't put her finger on. His attitude has gotten worse the longer Rodimus's team languishes on Neo-Cybertron.

"Yes, but what did he _do_?" she asks, eyeing Wheeljack and Nautica in a silent plea.

Nautica looks grief-stricken. "According to my preliminary readings?" she says, raising her datapad. "He atomized Tailgate."

-

Except that, according to all of their secondary readings - he hasn't. 

What exactly happened to Tailgate, no one can say.

After a swift exchange of comms between her, Ironhide, and Starscream, Windvoice ushers the more volatile elements into her office - Rodimus, Drift, Cyclonus, and Whirl - so that Wheeljack, Nautica, and Brainstorm can run their own independent analyses of the empty space in the threshold of Maccadam's Oil House 3.0, where Tailgate spontaneously burst apart into his component atoms. 

They find no trace of the energy signature of Killmaster's documented weaponry. Only the afterimage of Tailgate's atomic structure, its echoes fading even as they scan for more evidence. It's not outside the realm of possibility that this is a new kind of technology Killmaster designed, but that's not enough to arrest him. Not by Ironhide's rigorous standards.

Rodimus insists that means nothing - throws a tantrum, while Drift bites his tongue and stares hard out the window - but they have no proof that Killmaster had anything to do with it. He's monitored as closely as Shockwave; neither of them left the laboratory set up outside Censere's city limits at the time Tailgate died.

And spontaneous spark combustion is, apparently, not unheard of on Cybertron.

Cyclonus grieves in an old way, one that wouldn't be out of place on Caminus. The gouges under his optics are superficial but deep enough that self-repair won't be able to seal them without welding - and Windvoice doubts he'll let a medic near him for a long time. It's the kind of wound that's not meant to heal. He vibrates with intense, barely leashed emotion, and only Whirl dares to sit near him, his single optic unreadable.

When Nautica returns, distraught, with findings that match Wheeljack's, Cyclonus lashes out in a flurry of movement, shoves everyone away, and drives his sword through the floor. Then he raises his claws to his face to tear deeper.

Whirl stops him, both claws hooked around his wrists, and Cyclonus collapses in on himself.

-

Not the most heartening note to leave on. 

But Windvoice has a Prime to deal with.

\---

_To ravage, to slaughter,_

_to usurp under false titles,_

_they call empire;_

_and where they make a desert,_

_they call it peace._

_[Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.]_

\- Tacitus of the Citadel of Light, <<[Agricola. I. 30.](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tacitus)>>

\---

She rests a hand on the thrumming side of the space bridge and soaks in the passive data input that the Creation Lathe relays to her processor.

A Titan's space bridge feeds directly into their spark: the two are so deeply entwined as to be inseparable. Metroplex's space bridge sings with the resonance of his spark – strong, deep, and unfathomably old. The Creation Lathe translates the vibrations as music. If the cityspeakers of Caminus knew that, Windvoice was never taught it. They teach that interfacing directly with a Titan should always be a last resort, with good reason. But Windvoice has done it so often that music like this no longer strains the limits of her processing capacity.

t

Metroplex sends a pulse of [fondness] and Windvoice allows herself a wistful smile.

They prioritized the repair of Metroplex's sensors in this sector to better monitor his space bridge; he can see her expression. [Windvoice[troubled?]] he sends, through the upgraded comm link patched into his systems three months ago.

She shouldn't be. In a better world, maybe, the thought of welcoming a Prime would fill her with pride rather than trepidation. Instead, she spent hours agonizing over who should stand beside her in the space bridge chamber when Optimus arrives.

Without responding, Windvoice steps back from the arch and nods to the cityspeaker apprentice monitoring the space bridge's controls. Apocrypha's optics go wide and she nods frantically as she taps the control screen, elated.

Starscream grunts – a barely repressed snort of disdain. "I know this is hard for you, but please be nice," Windvoice mutters through the corner of her mouth, as Metroplex's space bridge charges up to reach Metrotitan on Earth.

Starscream makes some bizarre sound of Earth origin. "I'm _always_ nice," he says, sarcastically, shifting his weight so that his hip cocks to the side and knocks into Windvoice, jostling her.

"Liar," she mutters. Every week, he finds some way to make her regret fixing the scale on his new frame. Camiens already tend to be smaller than the Cybertronian average, due to the scarce resources on Caminus. But Starscream's spark called for something taller, broader, with engines capable of extended deep space flight. Cold construction forced him into a body that could never satisfy his spark. The need was in his name all along.

His ability to annoy her, unfortunately, appears to be a universal constant.

"Use 'subtle' instead," Wheeljack advises, his voice dry. "Diplomatic. Try not to blow raspberries at mechs who've lived on Earth longer than you and actually know what that sound means."

"Piffle," Starscream says, waving his hand dismissively.

Then the space bridge flares. A burst of electromagnetic energy whites out Windvoice's sensors for a split second as Metroplex and Metrotitan make contact, and fold the universe between them.

[don't leave me alone!]

[multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus -]

[Metrotitan[oldest friend]] weaves into the resonance of the space bridge. Windvoice has never interacted with Metrotitan as she has with Metroplex and Vigilem and Caminus, but Metroplex's impressions fill in the gaps: [stoic], [unfailing], [solitary]. And [mourning]. Not just for Cybertron-that-was, but for Ch-

An abrupt shift. Metroplex dampens the reverberation of the space bridge so fast that Windvoice loses his train of thought.

If she weren't so acclimated to the ebb and flow of Titan thoughts, Windvoice might have dismissed the sudden cutoff as a side effect of the space bridge finalizing its connection. But no – she can recognize that Metroplex deliberately cut off his stream of consciousness. Perhaps something personal, confidential, between him and Metrotitan that he didn't intend for her to see?

She respects his privacy. Windvoice shakes off the echoes that linger in her sensors, and turns her faltering mask of a smile up a notch as the space bridge ripples, and Optimus Prime steps through.

Even now, he awes. On Caminus, the original Primes are deified, worshiped as gods. Windvoice never believed with the depth of faith necessary to join the central Way of Flame as a pledged adherent, but she was raised in that culture. It's hard to sweep away the memory of the Mistress of Flame bowed low, acknowledging the Matrix within Optimus Prime before all of Caminus.

Optimus bears the strange shape of an Earth vehicle rather than a more traditional alt mode, but the weight of authority fills him with substance, an almost tangible gravity. The room seems to shift to center on him. At the control terminal, Apocrypha flutters, on the verge of transforming from excitement, her optics shining with the wonder and giddiness that made Starscream scoff.

Windvoice forces herself to fight the magnetic pull. If she lets Optimus dominate the room, she loses a lot more than just herself. She inclines her chin up rather than down in the instinctive bow that her training as a cityspeaker urges. "Optimus Prime. Welcome to Neo-Cybertron," she says, spreading her hands wide. She smiles politely at the other mechs who cross the space bridge in Optimus's wake: Aileron of Caminus, and the Autobots Jazz and Jetfire. No sign of anyone from Soundwave's contingent, or Alpha Trion, or any humans.

"Windvoice," Optimus Prime says, his voice a grave rumble. Then his blue optics flick past Wheeljack to fix over Windvoice's left shoulder and narrow at Starscream. "Starscream," Optimus finishes, with a reproachful edge.

"Always a pleasure, Optimus," Starscream says, his stance insolent. Windvoice doesn't dare take her eyes off Optimus to glare at Starscream, but she knows the sound of his smirk.

And she brought him here for more than one reason. She actively works to keep Starscream visible; she refuses to let him make his role in the government a dirty secret. But, more pragmatically, she needs him here as a dissenting voice. Wheeljack served under Optimus in the war; Starscream, she can count on to remind her that she doesn't owe Optimus any deference. He's a visitor here representing Earth – nothing more, nothing less.

Perhaps one day she'll even believe that.

Windvoice clears her vocalizer and waits until Optimus tears his censuring gaze away from Starscream. "We've prepared rooms for you and your escort," she says, gesturing toward the hall.

Optimus steps down from the space bridge platform with a nod. He sails past her, more preoccupied with examining Metroplex's unadorned halls, but she refuses to fall behind. "You should have time to settle in before the Council meeting this aftern-"

"Thank you, Windvoice. I would prefer to walk the city," Optimus says, brusquely. As they step out of Metroplex's halls and into one of the courtyards open to the air, where the Titan transformed his outer armor layers back to reveal wide plazas, Optimus glances around. "What do you call it? Neo-Cybertron?"

She wants to believe she's imagining the critical look she sees in his optics. Optimus's maskplate obscures a great deal of his emotions.

Windvoice stumbles a little on the answer. The glyphs Optimus used for [it] refer to the city, not the planet. She assumed that Metroplex's designation was obvious, but - "The city? It's Metroplex. Neo-Cybertron is what we call the whole world," she says, trying to interpret the unreadable look in Optimus's eyes. "There is Censere, but it is considered a separate municipal district in our records." She hesitates. "How is Metrotitan?"

"I see." Optimus crosses the courtyard. Windvoice gets the impression that he's searching for something as he scans the buildings that rise out of Metroplex's frame on either side. "Metrotitan is functional. Autobot City thrives."

Starscream gags. Windvoice says, loudly, "I am glad to hear it."

She represses a shiver of unease at the way Optimus refers to Metrotitan so casually by a different name. A name that echoes the war. It didn't use to bother her, that people conflated Metroplex with Iacon. Now, though, after seeing the neglect of Navitas? After -

"And the situation with Carcer?" he asks.

 _That's not his name._ "Uninhabited. Vigilem prefers to be treated with as an individual, not a city."

Optimus continues, his questions rapid-fire. "Wheeljack. Any difficulties with handling the Decepticon population?"

Windvoice opens her mouth to respond at the same time Wheeljack jerks, caught off guard by being so suddenly addressed.

But it's Starscream's turn to talk over her, casually snapping his fingers. "And I believe that's enough."

An ivory and teal mech slews to a stop beside them before Optimus can speak – Transmutate, her wheels smoking a little as she spins out into a bow with flawless showmanship.

An arm slips through Windvoice's and she finds herself towed away by Starscream, Wheeljack on his other arm. "Transmutate would love to continue your little tour for the day. Alas, Speaker Windvoice has several _urgent_ matters to attend to now. You know how these things are," Starscream says, with a winning smile.

Optimus's optics narrow. This time, Windvoice isn't imagining the disapproval in his weighty frown, or the way his eyes shoot to Wheeljack a moment later. "You –"

Transmutate pops up like a spring between Optimus and Wheeljack, her wheelskates dancing as she turns fluid circles around the Earth delegation. Jazz's visor track the Velocitronian with laser-like focus. "Honored to meet you, Optimus Prime! Do you want to see the race tracks? They're brand new!" she chatters, her EM field full of effusive pleasure as she herds them away. If Optimus's questions were relentless, Transmutate's babble redefines the word. "Just outside of Censere – you _have_ to see them, they're so good!"

"I -" Optimus starts to say, but it's too late. He casts one last hard stare back over his shoulder, but Windvoice doesn't get the chance to meet his eyes before Starscream draws them away.

-

Starscream propels her and Wheeljack down the courtyard and through one of Metroplex's doors to an annex. Windvoice puts up with the mechhandling until they're out of sight before wrenching her arm free. "Starscream, that's enough," she hisses, rounding on him. "You can't just haul me out of a meeting like that! What were you thinking?" 

Enough people question whether it's her or Starscream running the planet, as is.

Starscream rolls his optics. "I think that Optimus didn't _care_ about your niceties and getting a nice little tour. He was probing you for our weaknesses. If you're too slow to come up with your own way out, you get _my_ way out."

He withdraws his arm from Wheeljack's and folds both arms over his chest, distancing himself from both of them. Beside her, Wheeljack vents soundlessly, tension unstringing from between his shoulders now that the three of them are alone.

She tries not to let the evidence of Wheeljack's discomfort in the face of Optimus distract her. Only one person here feels vindicated in finding themselves at odds with Optimus Prime. "He just asked -"

Starscream's field flares with impatience. "And he expected you two to reportto him. Like his lackeys. That's what he _does,_ " he says, mockingly. His purple optics glitter like chips of Camien ice as he pretends to inspect his sharp fingertips. "He's the representative of a foreign world that only claims to be an 'ally' of ours with some weak excuses. If you start rattling off all our vulnerabilities to him to be polite, he'll know he can _use_ you."

The urge to jump Starscream and do something obscene to make him stop talking is – unprofessional in the extreme. Particularly with his amica right here in the room. Wheeljack stands hunched in the middle of the room, letting her argument with Starscream flow around him as he stares sightlessly between the fingers he presses against his face.

She paces toward a window to cool off, instead. "I'm aware," she says.

Starscream's voice is oddly quiet, and bitter. "About time. If you give him an inch, he'll take the whole planet. Optimus Prime never stopped assuming he was 'responsible' for Cybertron, and I doubt he intends to stop now."

Windvoice scrunches her optics shut in a grimace, and thinks wistfully of the simple times when she could side with Optimus with a clear conscience.

Then Starscream shifts; Windvoice can feel his prickling stare leave her back. "Wheeljack?" he mutters, in an undertone.

"I'm fine," Wheeljack says. He sounds as worn out as she feels, and they barely exchanged half a conversation with Optimus.

She draws a vent to steady herself, and raises her voice. Her vocalizer skips before clearing as she leans on the windowsill. "I don't intend to let him exercise authority over me. He has no claim here, even if he is a Prime. This isn't an empire," she says, growing more firm as she goes along. When she glances up, Starscream and Wheeljack are both watching her. "You've planned for this, Starscream."

A statement of a fact. Starscream's mirthless smile says enough. "You'll find that when the fate of the world is at stake, Optimus finds a way to muddle in and make it all about him and _his_ problems."

This time, when Starscream snorts bitterly, Windvoice allows it without comment.

She's tried to imagine how it would have ended if Optimus Prime had intervened during the Unicron crisis. A recurring sticking point in their stilted conversations via comms this past year has been his condemnation of Cybertron's destruction, no matter its necessity. Windvoice tried to explain Unicron's role as a smith, and the blueprints that the Creation Lathe of Solus Prime painted against the distant stars, but could never seem to reconcile her vision of the future with Optimus's.

If he had stopped her and Starscream from going to the core, where would they all be now?

She closes her hands into fists on the windowsill and gazes out across the courtyard. That's not the world they live in. "Keep it up, then. I'm trusting you to keep Optimus occupied for as long as these Council meetings take," she tells Starscream, before she can regret it. Pushing away from the window, she takes in Starscream's wide eyes and Wheeljack's wince with a crooked smile. "Don't let me down," she adds, just to bother him.

Starscream screws his face up in a disgusted grimace, as though he took a sip of fouled energon. "Eurgh. The t-word. Must you? I thought you knew better by now," he complains, looking deeply uncomfortable. He makes a shooing motion with his hand and avoids her optics. "Consider it done."

His expression turns thoughtful before Windvoice can turn away.

Well. Thoughtful is one word for it – calculating is another. "No, you can't kill him," she adds, hastily.

He shoots her a sour look. "You suck all the fun out of everything. _Please._ As though Optimus would ever have the decency to stay dead."

The fact that she needs to specify that at all fills her with despair. "Good."

She rolls her optics, and leaves him and Wheeljack to it. She doesn't know how Wheeljack puts up with Starscream for extended periods of time, but she'll give them all the private time in the world if it keeps Starscream balanced and in check.

If the sight of the two of them together makes her dwell on thoughts of Chromia, that's her problem. Not theirs.

-

Transmutate successfully entertains Optimus and most of his party until the Council needs to convene. Windvoice takes a moment within one of Metroplex's quiet chambers to meditate and recenter herself before flying out to the race tracks outside of Censere to escort Optimus to the meeting. Blurr and Jazz are deep in conversation in the ground obstacle course track when she arrives, but Transmutate keeps the rest of the Earth delegation pinned as she gives them a Velocitronian's perspective of the race tracks. Read: a very fast, very in depth perspective. Ignition, the Veloctron expat who partnered with Blurr to construct the race course in the first place, appears to be helping.

Even with his maskplate, Optimus Prime's expression looks strained.

She doesn't miss the reproachful look she receives from Aileron when she extricates Optimus from Transmutate's cheerful clutches.

Starscream calls Aileron's inclusion in the Earth delegation a calculated insult. Aileron is an active, adamant believer in the Way of Flame, with ties to not just Optimus but to the Mistress of Flame and the Torchbearers themselves.

And like many Camiens, Aileron considers Windvoice a traitor. A blasphemer of the highest order, against Solus Prime herself. 

-

Neo-Cybertron is on good enough terms with Eukaris, Devisiun, and Velocitron that their representatives have visited a few times over the past year to offer aid and smooth the way for an influx of tourists and immigrants from their own worlds, eager to see the new Cybertron. However, most of the Council representatives chose to attend this session via conference call. 

It's become increasingly awkward as the Mistress of Flame, representing Caminus, refuses to acknowledge Windvoice at all.

Optimus draws the conversation away from the casual topics Windvoice offers as they approach the room set aside for remote Council meetings.

"It surprises me that you chose to retain Starscream," Optimus says. Windvoice stiffens her wings and refuses to bend under the weight of his stare as they enter the conference room. "I trusted in you and Ironhide to monitor him and curtail some of his worse excesses. He is not trustworthy."

And _slag_ him to the Pit for bringing that up. Windvoice bites her glossa against the profanity– and mulls bitterly over the Windblade of old, who agreed with Optimus with a clear conscience. Things felt simpler when Starscream was the bad guy and Optimus was their only hope. Now, the sooner this Council sessions concludes, the sooner Windvoice can steer Optimus and his cohort back to Earth, and the better off Neo-Cybertron will be.

She hopes. Sweet Solus, she hopes and prays that it's truly Neo-Cybertron's best interests in her spark, and not pure selfishness that Starscream's convinced her is justified. Would she be able to tell? In the end, despite the fact that they saved Cybertron in the only way that mattered, neither she nor Starscream hold up well when their actions are placed under the microscope.

Perhaps they deserve each other.

"Can anyone truly know that another person is trustworthy?" she asks, rhetorically, in what Wheeljack calls her wise cityspeaker voice. She sets her datapad upon the table and cues the conference call without waiting for Optimus's reply. "I prefer to keep him close."

"If you believe it's the best course of action. But Megatron often thought the same, and Starscream's treachery sabotaged him, again and again." Optimus changes tack so abruptly it gives her whiplash. "How long do you believe it will be before Metroplex is back in fighting shape?" He seats himself before the camera provided for him, but Windvoice remains hyper-aware of his presence in the room - imposing, overwhelming.

She silently counts down with the conference call connection. Five pale blue screens arrange themselves in a semi-circle around the table, with varying degrees of static depending on how good the colony's long-range connection is. "Metroplex's citymode infrastructure is recovering well. Most likely due to the fact that he has the support and resources of a living world to draw on, now."

Optimus leans back in his seat stiffly.

After a split second's review, Windvoice winces at the sharpness in her tone. The two of them disagreed on this subject as recently as a month ago. Optimus believes that sacrificing the Matrix during a prior crisis restored Cybertron to life; Windvoice knows that it wasn't enough. She saw the dead core with her own eyes. The original damage that killed the planet ran too deep.

 _Too deliberately deep_ , whispers a rogue section of her processor. _Sabotage_.

But that's neither here nor there. She shouldn't snap at him just because Starscream's worn her temper thin.

"Yes. We will be discussing that," Optimus says, noncommittally. And when did the Prime's voice start to fill her with dread? 

But the last comm link successfully pings, and Windvoice needs to seat herself and raise her head to greet the Council of Worlds.

It's taken most of a year to stop looking to Caminus first. There's no time for personal greetings, but Windvoice smiles at Vanquish, Fireshot, Airazor, and Tigatron. As far as politics go, they're Cybertron's closest allies, and the closest she has to friends and trusted allies in all this.

Knock Out looks bored to the point of repainting his hands on screen, but he cultivates that image of disinterest on purpose. Moonracer raises a blurred hand and dimples a smile when Windvoice nods to them. 

Skipping past the Carcerian representatives would be too rude. Elita-1 meets her gaze with a cool, assessing frown. Better than it used to be. 

Only then does she gather her strength to look at Caminus's window. 

Through the screen, Windvoice can't read the magnetic memory-weave of the Mistress of Flame's cloak. The threaded fibers are an ancient art, capable of containing memory and song in their wires and magnetic cores. Most of the oldest relics are cloaks preserved by the Way of Flame that tell the ancient catechisms and ballads of the Knights, the Muses, and the Primes. Only those with the most precise fingers and clear optics learn the art today. Windvoice took it up herself: that, metal-folding, and handwritten calligraphy were her favorite arts.

She thinks about that, rather than dwelling on the cold, remote way that the Mistress of Flame ignores her existence.

Optimus is here only in a limited capacity, as an applicant for representation in the Council. Windvoice opens the meeting. "I've forwarded everyone an updated copy of the agenda for today. You should see the latest revision under the heading for Council membership appeals," she says. She expects someone to squawk at that once they finish reading. Gesturing to the side, she adds, "Optimus Prime attends as a guest of the Council, to present a second request for Earth's inclusion in the Council of Worlds." 

Right on cue, Elita jerks her head up from her impatient scan of the datapad. " _Trypticon_ applied for a seat?" she says, sharply.

More immediately, Optimus Prime's EM field smashes against Windvoice's in a burst of alarm. She weathers the suffocating crackle of his presence with a clenched jaw and very firmly does not acknowledge him. "He transmitted a request for representation through both Metroplex and Vigilem, which Metroplex has compiled for us to consider," Windvoice says, perfectly calm. She is a lake of mercury - smooth, silver, and unbroken.

"Uh-huh," Fireshot says, holding the datapad up to his pale visor. Vanquish leans over his twin to finish the sentence. "Not a lot of detail here..."

A fair point. Windvoice nods, with an apologetic shrug. "I'm not sure if we can expect an ancient, estranged Titan to know much about formulating a request for something like this," she points out. From what she's learned from her hasty review of Cybertronian history - the war, and what came before - Trypticon's interactions with other Titans and the general populace has been fraught. To put it mildly. "Since he's in orbit around Neo-Cybertron, we intend to reach out to him via Metroplex to get a better understanding of his intentions and what he expects to get out of membership in the Council. This note is to make the Council aware that a petition _has_ been submitted, in the event that Trypticon moves forward with his appeal in the future."

She can feel Optimus boiling over with questions.

Airazor drums her claws. "Fair enough. And I suppose there _is_ precedent for a Titan claiming membership," she muses, as Tigatron scrolls through the datapad between them.

" _Contested_ precedent," Elita-1 cuts in.

The Mistress of Flame adjusts her seated position, the spires of her headdress glimmering in the warm light of the Solar Hall. The faint disgust in her otherwise dignified, sedate expression when she glances toward the Eukaris representatives fills Windvoice with quiet shame. "I fail to see Vigilem sending any kind of delegate to represent itself, either," the Mistress of Flame says, without saying anything unacceptable to the Eukarians. Instead, her gold optics settle on Windvoice, for the first time in several months. "Unless Speaker Windvoice claims twovotes in this Council." 

_A lake, a lake_ , Windvoice chants. "If and when he chooses to do so, Vigilem speaks for himself," she says, steadily. She's never once claimed to represent Vigilem on the Council, and they all know it. She won't allow the Mistress of Flame to muddy the waters like this. 

If Vigilem ever _did_ show up at a Council meeting, it would make the past year's arguments look like a cakewalk.

Instead, she pushes forward to the next item on the agenda. "Optimus Prime. Present your appeal for a seat on the Council," she says, and angles her head toward Optimus for the first time since the session started.

She can still taste alarm through his electromagnetic field as he rises to make his second plea in as many years for Earth to have a seat and delegates in the Council. The situation has changed, Optimus claims: he and Soundwave of the Decepticons have a strong alliance, Galvatron is dead, and relations with the native humans of Earth have improved beyond recognition. 

Of course Optimus annexed Earth to better protect it from Galvatron's depredations. No, he won't cede the protectorate, in spite of Galvatron's death at his own hands; now he claims Earth is exposed to risks from the galaxy at large. He and his Autobots have spent the past year fending off guerrilla attacks from humans uninterested in Cybertronian protection, as well as planting crops, distributing technology, and interfering with human conflicts.

The fact that he didn't bring a human in his escort to represent them here strikes Windvoice as telling. Do any of them even want Cybertronians on their planet? The longer Optimus describes his intervention in Earth politics, the more uneasy she feels. She finds herself shaking her head even before he's finished, but stops her mouth: she doesn't know what she might say if she frees her vocalizer.

_Earth is not a Cybertronian colony. The only Titan present is one who journeyed there after the fact. What are you thinking, Prime?_

Once, she might have told herself that surely Optimus had his reasons. Leadership has made her depressingly pragmatic. She won't let herself become Starscream, but she can't afford to dismiss the insight he offers as an advisor, whether she likes it or not.

"So - much the same as before, then," Knock Out says, sounding insufferably bored. He slings his legs over the edge of his chair. "You unilaterally declared this speck of dirt a Council world, but it's still populated almost entirely by humans a year later. You're not here to represent anyone truly _Cybertronian_ except yourself and a scattered handful of rabble-rousers irritating the locals."

"Whatever happened to the attempted colony near the gas giant? Iuppiter?" Elita adds, with a notable lilt in her accent as she pronounces the nearest Cybertronian translation of the human term. Despite the contentious state of things between her and Windvoice, Elita seems to have no patience for this. She flicks to summon a holographic diagram of said gas giant: primarily composed of hydrogen and helium, of insufficient mass to form a star but perfect for Cybertronian scale energy requirements. "That seemed far more promising. With a Titan in the solar system, they could easily settle a moon and expand from there, without all this nonsense with the pre-existing alien civilization." Elita folds her fingers together, staring Optimus down with critical optics.

"Sanctuary Station is an independent endeavor overseen by Soundwave, populated mainly by Decepticons, under our surveillance," Optimus says. "Metrotitan remains on Earth, under my command."

"Your militarized command," Tigatron says, with a soft growl underlying his words.

Elita barks a laugh. "I hear only excuses," she mutters, just loud enough to register on the call. She crosses her leg and turns away from Optimus. The Carcer line mutes in the corner of Windvoice's HUD as Elita consults Obsidian at her right shoulder. 

Optimus shifts in discomfort. It radiates off him in waves. Windvoice wonders if the broken Matrix half in his chest amplifies his EM field; sitting this close to him is like sitting in a constant cloud of static electricity. "Be that as it may. However, I have grave concerns about the state of Cybertron itself."

Sometimes, Windvoice thinks, she _hates_ it when Starscream's right. He's going to taunt her for weeks over him accurately predicting this. The Mistress of Flame leans forward on the Sun Throne, with an air of regal anticipation that makes Windvoice ill.

Forget the lake. "Be that as it may, you are _not_ a member of this Council," she says, lancing Optimus with her optics. Knock Out's helm whips up at her cutting tone; the Devisens shuffle, their twin visors fixed on her. "We are here to discuss Earth's application for a seat. Until such a seat is granted and a representative appointed, you have no standing to raise a new thread of discussion here."

She shouldn't feel so gratified by the way Optimus rocks back under her salvo, his blue eyes piercing. Suspicion laces the edges of his field as her rebuke sinks in.

How badly she wishes he could understand. How desperately she wishes they were on the same side in this. 

How even more desperately she wishes that she, Nautica, and Chromia never took up the Autobrand, oblivious to the long, horrific context of the war and all it implied. It gave so many people the wrong impression. Optimus thinks he can command their loyalty without a thought, and for so long - too long - he wasn't wrong.

"I concur with Windvoice," Knock Out says, in Optimus's shocked silence. He smiles thinly, while Windvoice keeps her face a smooth mask. Uncompromising. "Stop holding this up."

Airazor flares her wings out behind her. "Eukaris seconds. We'll ask you to leave while the Council confers on your application," she says, with a kind, diplomatic smile for Optimus.

The Mistress of Flame's mouth tightens, almost imperceptibly. But if she has something to say to swing things in Optimus's favor, she chooses to hold them in reserve; she sits back in her chair, adjusting her grip on the ceremonial Hammer of Flame.

After an awkwardly long pause, Optimus pushes back from the table. Windvoice's audials burn as she keeps her eyes fixed forward. "Of course," Optimus says, too slowly.

She doesn't relax her shaking grip on the datapad until the door slides open and shut behind her with a faint _whoosh_. "Let's continue," Windvoice says.

She hopes she doesn't sound as miserable as she feels.

-

CH: Long day?   
WV: A long year.  
WV: How goes the hunt?  
CH: It goes.   
CH: The company's not bad, but it is...grim.  
WV: Arcee?  
CH: Yeah.  
CH: She's relentless.  
WV: Has she said anything about Solus Prime?  
CH: She just does that knowing smile thing and vanishes into the ductwork whenever I try to ask. I think she's onto me.  
WV: Drat.  
WV: I wish I could ask her...so many things.   
CH: She'd just give you the sneaky treatment. Seriously. I have no idea how she moves like that.  
WV: Do you need anything from here? Supplies? Fuel?  
CH: We should be fine for a while yet. I wouldn't say no to news from home, though.  
CH: Is the Mistress of Flame still...  
WV: Yes.  
WV: Don't worry about all that. Starscream and I will handle it - somehow. Focus on finding Liege, and come back home.  
CH: I still can't believe you're letting Starscream hang around like that. There's a 90% chance he's part of the problem.  
WV: He stands as much to lose if the Mistress of Flame extradites me as I do. I don't like it, but everything's...messy.   
WV: I'm keeping an eye on him, at least. It's better than nothing.  
WV: The Council votes on giving Earth a seat on the Council for the second time, this week.  
CH: Do the organics really want a stake in our politics? It just seems strange that Optimus keeps insisting on involving them. They're so...fragile.  
WV: I wish I knew. The one human he used to bring only ever seemed concerned with keeping Earth safe. The only one who petitions for them to join is Optimus.  
WV: I...I don't understand him. Maybe if I did, this wouldn't be so hard.  
WV: He's requested a private meeting with me tomorrow. I can't tell if the Mistress of Flame has put him up to this or not, and that scares me.  
CH: Promise me you'll be careful?   
CH: If you can't request a new bodyguard from Caminus anymore, try with Ironhide? He'll protect you.  
CH: And whoever Starscream recommends, chose the exact opposite.  
WV: Very funny.  
WV: I won't let fear rule me, Chromia.   
CH: It's not about fear, it's about not being dead.  
CH: I -  
WV: Yes?  
CH: I wish I had taken you home.  
CH: I'm sorry.  
CH: There has to be a way to explain things to everyone back home. You don't deserve to be censured like this -  
WV: Chromia.  
CH: I miss you.  
WV: I miss you, too.  
WV: I'll talk to Ironhide.  
CH: Yeah. Tell him I'll hold him to it.  
WV: Be safe.  
CH: You too.  


-

Starscream released Chromia to have her hunt Liege Maximo down. The pardon he promised is the only reason she's exiled now, rather than imprisoned or worse for crimes against Cybertron. 

Crimes she committed to try to protect Windblade. Out of love, and desperation.

Now, with Starscream abdicated and Vigilem passing in slow circles overhead, Windvoice isn't sure _what_ will happen when Liege Maximo returns. Starscream's underhanded dealings are a mess. Her own conflict of interest if she grants that pardon - another mess. The question of what _exactly_ they'll try Liege Maximo for - how Elita might profit from any trial - how Vigilem might respond – the people Chromia killed - 

Nothing is ever simple.

\---

I don’t know how to stay tender

with this much blood in my mouth

\- [Tranter of Cordis](http://tristamateer.com/post/150269203924/i-dont-know-how-to-stay-tender-with-this-much), <>

\---

Nautica returns to the field site with a heavy spark.

She left Velocity pouring over Ratchet's records of spontaneous spark atomization from the war, comparing them to all the measurements from the site of Tailgate's -

It's not fair. He wasn't a close friend, but he was _a_ friend, and her chest burns with guilt. She should have been able to dosomething more than just scan a bunch of useless, dumb subatomic particles and find _nothing_. If there were only a way to line the pieces up. She can't focus when all she can think about is Tailgate taking half a step, arguing with Rewind about something inconsequential, and vanishing in a spray of energon before he finishes.

That didn't happen. He disappeared without a trace; there was no energon. Instantaneous atomization. 

But she can't stop seeing them, one memory layered over another. 

She killed people, here, on this planet. [I don't know how to stay tender | with this much blood in my mouth] keeps drifting through her mind, ever since the fight against the DJD. She tries to override the circuitous, intrusive thought with other scathing literary quotations - she's read so many rusty old writers talking about loss and grief! - but no luck. Tranter of Cordis's work juts out of the neat, orderly stacks of her memory banks like one of the old, unsolvable Epistemus equations, jarring her back into an uneasy haze of regret whenever she trips over it.

Except the equations _had_ been solvable - she did them in her spare time between finishing her literature thesis and starting on her linguistics degree - and now Nautica's caught up in the quantum impossibilities of the _Lost Light's_ engines, the potential supersymmetry underlying the theoretical compressed space. 

She asked someone to teach her how to fight, once - she can't remember exactly who - and now that she's on the other side of it, she can't seem to stop shaking inside. It feels fundamentally wrong that Tailgate could die so suddenly, in the middle of a nice summer day, and leave only a horrible, physical absence where a friend should be.

If she's not careful, there's a similar hollow inside her. A place where her face feels wrong - where Kaput's repairs move out of sync with the rest of her neurocircuitry - where the focusing lenses embedded in her optics click off each other audibly, in a way she never noticed before -

Scrubbing her hands in a neutronium stripper, Nautica bites her lip to stifle a scream. 

Despite Rodimus's furious insistence, Killmaster is still parked at the edge of the field site, completely absorbed in his work. When she discreetly measures with her HUD ruler, Nautica's preeetty sure he hasn't moved a centimeter from where he first sat down this morning. In all the fuss and hubbub, she's not sure if anyone even _asked_ him about Tailgate.

Nautica freezes, halfway to her work station. She stares at the ridge of Killmaster's massive back, her mouth half open as she turns the thought over in her mind. 

It's so obvious, once she thinks about it the right way around. If she and Brainstorm can't find anything to help Tailgate - why _not_ consult Killmaster? He's here, isn't he? Sure, he's a volatile Decepticon who chased them halfway across the galaxy to steal his wand back, but he hasn't technically hurt any of them. And who wouldn't leap at the chance to study something like this? She's sure it's right up his alley!

Gathering her courage, Nautica takes a hesitant step toward Killmaster, pressing her index fingers together. "Excuse me, Killmas-" 

He stands up with a grunt.

"-ter?" Nautica finishes, with a crack in her voice. She leans back - and further back still, her eyes as wide as they can go as Killmaster turns and stares down at her with a flat expression.

"Yes?" he says.

She had something to ask him. Right, right. "...Has anyone ever told you're in the 99th percentile of the average Camien height distribution?" Nautica blurts out, weakly.

Killmaster looks singularly unimpressed. "No."

"Oh." Nautica taps her fingers together faster, and tries not to focus on how very huge and incredibly pointy Killmaster is. Finally, with a wobbly smile, she tries - "Could I consult with you on a completely and totally theoretical thought experiment concerning spontaneous atomization?"

"No."

He starts to turn away.

She's losing him. "Would it help if I put the word 'quantum' in front of it? Because I can do that. A completely and totally theoretical _quantum_ thought experiment concerning -"

" _No._ " Now he's adjusting the angle of his wand. These days, he keeps it balanced on a thin metal loop, pointed at a random spot that Brainstorm and Nautica have determined, after a group huddle, means absolutely nothing whatsoever.

"Really? Not even a little bit?" Struck by inspiration, Nautica snaps her fingers and pretends to scoff. "Too intimidated by the challenge, I see!"

Killmaster stays utterly still for 4.6 seconds, and then slowly turns his head to stare at her. Considering the fact that his mouth is mostly teeth, it's impressive how well he forms an unimpressed line with it. "Only one mech can attempt to use such a transparent goad against me, and only because I allow it," he informs her.

She deflates with sigh. "Drat. Brainstorm said that always works. I thought he had better insight into Decepticon scientist psychology than me, all things considered."

"No." 

And that appears to be that, as far as Killmaster is concerned. He leaves his wand and crouches down beside the terminal he commandeered on the edge of the field site, irritably gouging a wayward tuft of cybergrass when it brushes the side of his foot. The clod of dirt flies three kilometers through the air before Nautica loses sight of it over the foothills.

So much for that. Nautica vents again and rubs the side of her temple. Tonight, or sometime soon, she needs to get the gang together and find some engex Swerve hasn't messed with. They need to send Tailgate off properly. The mere thought gives her a miserable headache. 

Nautica resets her optics and realizes, abruptly, that that's not what gave her a headache.

She blinks again at the sight of Killmaster's wand vibrating on its slender stand. Blinding sparks of green light pop around its tapered metal length; it nearly shorts out the sensors on her visor when she cycles it on to inspect the wand properly. To be safe, she grabs her wrench and waves it at the wand.

Oh dear.

With a wince, Nautica clears her throat. Loudly. 

Killmaster's engine rumbles in warning.

"Excuse me again, but your wand is experiencing some kind of hyperspatial resonance feedback and you should probably fix it before it tears a hole in the fabric of the universe," Nautica says, so fast that she barely understands herself. 

Killmaster glances up from the too-small terminal. He cocks his head to the side, spines bristling as he takes a step around the wand's spreading, yellow-green aura. "Fascinating. It should not be doing that," he says, in a voice that is not _nearly_ worried enough by this sudden turn of events for Nautica's liking.

Nautica circles around the opposite side of the wand with trepidation as she holds her wrench a little closer. When it becomes clear that Killmaster intends to just observe - rather than, y'know, try to stop the wand from vibrating into the next dimension - she pipes up. "Seriously, do you need help with that? Because I'm picking up on distressing amounts of extra-dimensional superstring particles!" She shakes the wrench pointedly in his direction. "Just listen!"

[Warning! Distressing amounts of extra-dimensional superstring particles! Seek shelter immediately!] the wrench announces, in a squeaky, sped up version of Brainstorm's voice.

"No," Killmaster says. Apparently that's his favorite word. He continues to stare at the wand with obscene fascination, his fangs grinding against each other as he leans into the crackling green light. "It is reacting to -"

With a _crack_ , the metal floor of their platform fractures. Nautica yelps and jumps backward, raising a fist and her wrench as a shield.

A bubble of molten rock and metal thrusts out of the fissure in the ground and smacks against the platform. A cloud of steam boils off the surface of the weirdly arm-shaped plume of lava.

Then, with an audible "Hup!", a magma-encrusted mech heaves themselves up out of the fissure. The platform, thankfully, is built to withstand a Brainstorm-class explosion (on a scale of Jetfire to Ironfist), so the instruments don't melt from the boiling heat that washes over them. The mech collapses in a puddle of molten rock and metal beside the hole.

"Er. Hello?" Nautica says, rechecking the specs on the wrench to see if she can safely tap the mech on the shoulder. 

They lay there, unmoving, and do not respond. 

Killmaster doesn't spare the possibly-dead mech a glance; he walks to his wand instead, since it stopped sparking viciously in the interim, and turns it over in his vast hands for closer inspection.

Nautica doesn't _think_ they're stuck like that. She takes a hesitant step forward, keeping a careful eye on her external heat sensor readouts as she crouches beside them.

The mech's head wrenches away from the floor with a vent: the resulting gust of superheated air sets off alarms on half the scientific instruments in the vicinity. With a scrape of their hand, the mech scrubs the molten slag off their face to reveal a pair of yellow optics in a golden face that looks hauntingly familiar. 

But no matter how Nautica wracks her processor, she can't identify anyone she knows who looks like this. 

"Ah. Good morning!" they say, cracking their neck and scraping away another layer of lava as they sit upright.

It's mid-afternoon based on Neo-Cybertron's current rotation, but Nautica's desire to correct them withers in the face of her fascination with the fact that the mech hasn't melting. "Are you alright? You've got something on your - er -" Nautica points. A glob of molten slag is currently hissing away on the mech's layered finials.

With a twitch, the mech prods at the lava with their head tilted to the side. "Oh, that," they say, absently. 

Then, in a fluid rush, every armor plate on their body flares. Magma splatters around their - her feet as the rapid flicker of transformation sluices it off. The rest of the mech is gold, with orange accents and clear, circular panels scattered around her torso. Only one is lit with spark light. "Better?" she asks, stretching her arms over her head with a crack of stiff joints. 

Killmaster grunts, and glances at the stranger for the first time. "Not you," he says, with an arched brow.

"I should hope not," the mech replies, nonsensically. 

Another grunt, and Killmaster refocuses on his broken wand.

Nautica focuses on the realpriority, here. "What are you _made_ of?" she asks, captivated, as she bends over to stare down the fissure in the earth that the mech crawled out of. There's only a statistically thin layer of insulated metal and organic crust between the surface of the planet and the molten, undifferentiated mantle below, but still. To have reached the surface so fast that the magma didn't have time to cool off along the way? "Did you come up from the very center? Our instruments show it's over 4000 °Cy down there."

The mech leans over beside Nautica, reaches down into the fissure, and grasps something. "Yes. Where else would I have come from?" she asks, with a quizzical tilt to her head. "Excuse me -"

Then, with a tug, the mech yanks a giant chunk of dark, solidified metal out of the fissure. A trickle of molten slag flips off one end and arcs through the air to effortlessly land smack in the middle of Wheeljack's favorite radio telescope.

"Now. I would love to help, but I'm afraid I must be off," the mech says, brightly. 

Nautica opens and shuts her mouth a few times. "Right! Um. Goodbye?"

With a brilliant smile, the mech then slings the slab of metal over her shoulder, turns, and walks straight off the platform. The lingering heat in her frame sets the organic plantlife by the edge of the platform aflame.

Nautica stares after her, and then stares back at Killmaster.

Killmaster continues to not care.

She gestures wildly with both hands. "You're seriously not interested in this? Someone just climbed out of the molten core! Alive!"

"Irrelevant," Killmaster says. He very, very carefully adjusts the angle of his wand on the stand, lowering his head until he's level with the pointy end. "I am far more interested in what you all have done with that _moon_."

\---

_I lived, glitch._

\- Vivere of the Core, probably

\---

_Elsewhere_

The hailing frequency arrives on the comms terminal in Scorponok's private quarters. It bypasses the ship's security screen in a way he'd hoped was no longer possible. 

With a churning spark, he sends her from the room, and accepts the call in the privacy of his office. The Grand Architect's symbol, a golden gear that rotates as it spins, flickers on and turns over the terminal. 

Scorponok seen the Architect's true form exactly once. He would give much not to repeat the experience.

He sets himself to endure. 

"My most resourceful servant," the Architect says, his whisper insidious, crawling. The harsh voice scrapes through his processor like a fragment of unwelcome thought. "We have completed our analysis of the prototype. I must commend you on your success."

Scorponok allows himself one slow, noiseless sigh - too low for the comms terminal to transmit. He keeps his claws clamped around the armor of his legs, out of sight. If the Grand Architect wishes to think Scorponok a slave, that's his mistake. As it was Megatron's. _There are no tame_ _Decepticons._

"I'm glad that you approve," Scorponok replies, his words clipped and emotionless. "The Catharsian remains in our custody, until we can replicate her results."

It's not hard to feign disinterest. He hasn't cared about the Infinite project even once since the Architect assigned him the task of overseeing the project. Scorponok fulfilled the letter of the Architect's orders - recruiting new minds, reorganizing the incubation facilities, procuring the several hundred millions of tons of _sentio metallico_ in order to fuel the Infinite experiments - but only so that he could skim his own share of resources off the top for his true project.

"Eliminate her. We will have no loose ends," the Architect says, dismissive. 

Then - "As for the results of your secondary project: how is _she_ doing?"

And Scorponok feels a cold, leaden weight punch through the bottom of his tanks. 

He didn't feel despair when the Grand Architect abducted him and claimed him as a [belonging]. He didn't feel it when he first felt the touch of the Architect's true form, corroding his circuits as it probed the traces of humanity in Scorponok's mind. He didn't feel it when word came down the wire that Overlord was dead - only for Overlord to walk past him in unnatural, twisted halls of the Architect's stronghold a few months later.

He feels it now. 

"How?" he asks. 

In the corner of his vision, a pair of dark purple servos curl around the edge of the door. A red eye blinks as she peeps around the corner.

If he allows himself to become visibly or electromagnetically distressed, she will try to sneak back in. His clever, clever daughter interprets orders very loosely. He failed to specify how _long_ she needed to leave the room for, and she'll see that as an opportunity.

"Oh, Scorponok." The Architect sounds amused. Scorponok feels the sensor ghost of a tendril stroking along the back of his mind. "Everything is of my Grand Design. Even your little...side project." 

Then the pressure increases, and Scorponok's visor boils with static as the Architect's voice rises a notch, into something strident and grating. A punishment mode. "Now. _Tell me_."

Scorponok fights it for three seconds, contorting under the Architect's tightening leash - until sense returns to him in a rush. He releases the held ventilation cycle before his frame can overheat to damaging levels and forces acquiescence into a loop through his processor. "She is fine," he says, stiffly. Robotically.

The pressure eases, and Scorponok draws back from the comms terminal. Gingerly, he inspects the raw, searing edges where the Architect's leash dissolved new holes in his processor's coding. It will heal, but it will take precious time.

"Keep me appraised of her progress," the Architect says, in a voice that brooks no argument.

Scorponok bows his head, and seethes only within his spark. His mind remains pliant. "Of course."

Seamlessly, the Architect's tone shifts. "Now, my most clever pet. You require sparks for your experiment, no?"

The contemptuous amusement remains, under the Architect's veneer of tolerance; Scorponok lets it roll over him like spent fumes, through the ease of long practice. He can bear it. He's siphoned funds and resources from the Architect's formidable assets for some time now - a trickle here, a 'lost' Worldsweeper there. Anything the Architect freely offers may come at a price, but Scorponok can take a price of his own. It's an advantage he can't afford to refuse. "Yes," he replies, curtly.

None of his crew since Rat-a-tat-tat have volunteered their sparks to repeat the transplant procedure that produced the firstborn. Scorponok removed the loudest dissenters within the first days, when she was still soft and vulnerable, so that there would be no risk of - accidents. But he underestimated their attachment to their material frames, and lingering distaste for organics. Even knowing that one day she will be free of her flesh protoform and settled within a proper Cybertronian frame, perfect in every way, has not assuaged their doubts. 

The Architect's symbol flickers. For a moment, Scorponok glimpses the being that waits behind the gear, and it jars him from his thoughts like a slap of molten slag. 

"Correct this error for me, and you shall have all the sparks you require," the abomination says, his whisper meant to sound persuasive. Scorponok shudders; it never fails to trigger some innate horror, deep in his spark. "Someone has revived a component that I long thought dead and accounted for. Kill them, and crack open the dirtball they are squatting on, and you will find all the spark energy you need within."

Calculations start rolling immediately - and then there's that word, that shining beacon that flares in Scorponok's mind like a neon sign.

_ [Error.] _

He couldn't repress the crooked smile that curls across his face if he _tried_. He accepts the encrypted transmission that arrives a moment later, bearing the relevant coordinates and a dossier on the Architect's targets with his hands on autopilot, his processor fully occupied with this revelation.

Not once in the past nine years has the Architect admitted to something as uncouth as a mistake. 

"At once, Architect," Scorponok says, bowing his head as he once did to Megatron - a coiled sting, waiting to strike.

"This mission is of the highest priority. Expect my emissary to join you within the hour."

The transmission cuts off. 

Scorponok grimaces - the Grand Architect's emissaries are as horrific as their master. He was forced to interact with them once before, and wants none of them anywhere near his daughter.

She bolts across the room the instant the transmission ends. Her newly developed foot plating has grown in disproportionately large compared to the rest of her armor and slaps against the ground with each step when she's excited - which is often. Scorponok has enough time to vent a sigh and angle himself toward her before she launches herself at his leg.

His firstborn is small. Larger than any organic human by several magnitudes, but barely brushing the lower limits of minibot classification. She props her elbows on Scorponok's knee and then boosts herself up, kicking her feet as she uses him as a living ladder. As she's grown this past year, completing her rapid human childhood and extended adolescence period slower than a normal protoform's development, she's sprouted armor that exceeds all of Scorponok's most optimistic expectations - his assistants had worried that she wouldn't develop armor instars at all. It integrates flawlessly with her slim, purple and brown organic protoform in panels of pale yellow and orange, with a pair of matched yellow vents and red finials that frame her dark maskplate.

The maskplate is...an addition. A battlemask for a great warrior, he told her, and she had cheered, insisting that it match the grey of his own accents.

The sight of her organic face, uniquely vulnerable compared to the rest of her plating, unsettled him.

She rests her chin on her folded arms as she stares curiously at the blank comms screen. The slim blades of the lift fans embedded in her wings wiggle, despite her insistence on not using them. 

"Who was that, Papa?" Sari asks, her EM field all innocent curiosity. Her human voice echoes, muffled, behind the maskplate.

Scorponok scoops her up and deposits her on his shoulder instead. Her red visor deploys automatically over her fragile human optics, but she only squirms out of his grasp in a fit of giggles.

They need to work on her battle instincts, still.

"An enemy," he informs her, and stands. If they're expecting an emissary to join them, they need to be ready.

Sari emits a soft gasp. "An Autobot?" she whispers. She rests a hand on his helm as he walks, swaying in time with his footsteps.

"No," he says. "Something worse."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some sources that aren't linked in the text:[Catullus 101,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_101) for a Metrotitan quote. The title itself is an altered line from [Swinburne's Ilicet](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35402/35402.txt) \- the alteration is the title of one of [Lightning on the Wave](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/895946/Lightning-on-the-Wave)'s Sacrifices Arc works. The concept of being a lake comes from the [Protector of the Small](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protector_of_the_Small). The concept of robots weaving capes with memories stored in them is inspired directly by [this post about magnetic core memory](https://isnerdy.tumblr.com/post/168174115796/rolypolywardrobe-systlin-darkersolstice) and I'm not even sorry. Optimus’s general attitude drawn from [Your Face Becomes The Sun by spockandawe.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13793508)


	2. Chapter 2

\---

_is the blood on your hands dry? is it slowly disappearing?_

_mine isn't._

\- Ashley Mares of Earth, <<[psalm of scattered ashes](https://sleepwalking.nu/post/169157134003/is-the-blood-on-your-hands-dry-is-it-slowly) / luna luna>>

\---

The ping arrives early the next morning. 

Windvoice rises before dawn. She takes advantage of the early hours to stretch and run through the exercises that Chromia used to harp on her about. Most of the energy blade techniques that Windblade learned as an apprentice in the cityspeakers' cloister were ceremonial; Chromia insisted she know how to really defend herself.

(It never stops hurting.)

By Cybertron's standards, Chromia's techniques aren't much better than ceremonial. Windvoice prays she'll never have reason to reach Cybertronian standards - escalated exponentially by millions of years of war, and filed to a viciously sharp point. When people like Starscream fight, they rarely bother with disabling their opponents.

So Windvoice runs through the slow, sweeping blade dances until her circuits burn and her arms ache, and finishes with a bow to greet the head of the Neo-Cybertron Security Force, waiting by the side of the practice field. On Caminus, there are precise modes of respect for bowing, to mirror the different modes of speech in Old Cybertronian. Most Cybertronians don't remember them, and so Windvoice bows cityspeaker-to-warrior, rather than the nod of leader-to-official.

It might only matter in her own mind, but she shies away from it.

"A friend tells me that you're in need of a bodyguard," Ironhide says, as he falls in beside her. He - politely, she thinks - does not comment on her fighting technique. Instead, he taps the side of his nose in some obscure gesture and winks an optic. 

_Chromia._ She vents a sigh. "I meant to ask you for suggestions later today," she admits, rolling a shoulder that aches from the workout. "Even if the rest of the Combaticons were conscious, they wouldn't be my first choice." 

She doesn't want to touch the mangled mess that is Starscream's conspiracy with the Combaticons with a ten kilometer pole. Onslaught, Blast Off, and Brawl are still blissfully unconscious in CR chambers after their abrupt decapitation at Elita-1's hands a year ago. Meanwhile, Vortex performs some murky function as Starscream's enforcer, the blunt force object to balance Transmutate's nimble hand, and Swindle runs a quarter of the economy.

One day, Onslaught and the others will wake up. When that time comes, she doesn't know what Starscream will do. At one point the Combaticons had evidence that could incriminate Starscream, before abruptly claiming to have worked for him all along, and the fact that they've survived in those CR chambers without any 'accidents' befalling them is a minor miracle - a testament to Starscream's slow, questionable improvement.

But no one is sure what the Combaticons will remember when their processors finish redeveloping from scratch. Sometimes spark memory restores everything; sometimes it doesn't.

Windvoice swallows. She makes a mental note to check with the Combaticons' primary medic later. If they're close to recovering, Starscream might...panic. And a panicked Starscream makes for a _hell_ of a time. He's halfway tolerable these days, with Wheeljack's mellowing influence; if he reverts to old habits, the government could implode.

"Well, I figure I'll do, for now," Ironhide says, his optics crinkled in a mild, easy smile. "Since a certain someone would have my 'hide if I let you get hurt. I'll sync my schedule with yours, and we'll see how it goes."

"Don't let me get in the way of your work," she says, cautiously. Ironhide oversees intercity law enforcement, as well as security and defense on their side of Metroplex's space bridge. He's in and out of as many meetings as she is, lately, as Neo-Cybertron's population swells with curious colonists, neutrals, returning refugees, and a much-belated influx of Autobots and Decepticons. The partisans still tend to cluster together, though Windvoice is determined to keep the Decepticons' main neighborhood in Censere from descending into poverty again. Keeping the peace and enforcing the law fairly is a full time job.

Ironhide chuckles. "Don't worry. I've got a few recruits who'll be good for it. Just got to sort out the details with 'em. Where are you headed this morning?"

"The memorial." She grimaces and shades her optics as the first rays of sunlight creep over the horizon. "Optimus requested a private meeting."

-

The Memorial Fields lay across the strait between the northern and southern continents. The strait is fifteen kilometers wide at its narrowest point, before widening to become the as-yet unnamed ocean to the south; Nautica and a few other submersible alts are mapping it in their spare time. Early on, the Constructicons bridged the strait before concentrating on the construction in Censere. Windvoice had it inspected twice by independent construction firms to make sure it was safe. 

She deliberately paces herself to match Ironhide's speed with a wistful pang - it's not quite the same familiar, measured pace she mastered with Chromia - and the two of them reach the northernmost edge of Censere's fields in a little under an hour. The Fields aren't heavily trafficked. Colonists tend to view them as cursed, or as a curiosity; Neutrals are more vocally bitter on the subject. 

A few Autobots live out here, eschewing the two cities in favor of solitary contemplation. Occasionally, Ironhide sends a patrol out to retrieve the bodies of Autobots and Decepticons who cross the strait in the dead of night to quietly kill themselves. They don't have the resources to guard the southern continent full time to try to prevent it. Windvoice keeps a list of the names. Blurr promised to scout a native Cybertronian to design another memorial, since the best artisans Windvoice knows are all Camien.

Optimus waits deep in the fields. A small ocean of translucent, silver-circuited spark flowers surrounds a single plinth, its holographic image flickering erratically against the clear morning sky.

Megatron is an open-ended question. According to Rodimus and Ultra Magnus, he fled justice to take up arms in another universe - one where the Functionist Council that once persecuted Cybertron successfully seized control of the planet, subjugating the entire populace in a police state and enacting mass genocide. Apparently, Censere's census technology, used to track the quantum signature of every Cybertronian spark in the galaxy, can no longer detect whether Megatron is alive or dead in this other universe.

The silver flowers around the flickering statue represent all those who died at his hands. The sea around Megatron's plinth is quite literal, in that respect. Somehow, Windvoice isn't surprised to find Optimus here. He rests on one bent knee, his head bowed in silence until she comes to a halt a few paces from him and sees what he's looking at.

A few of the statues have been vandalized - again, it's impossible to guard them all. Someone bombed Overlord's plinth from orbit, and too _many_ people claimed responsibility for it for Ironhide to prosecute anyone. The plinth for someone named Roadbuster is routinely carved up with accusations of - horrific things. Starscream's plinth vanished after repeatedly being spray painted with purple graffiti, and Starscream flatly refuses to return it under any circumstances.

No one dares touch Megatron's. Badges of various sizes lay in stacks or leaned against the base of the plinth, some still attached to the shredded patch of armor they were welded to. The purple badges outnumber the red, but not by much.

"You wished to speak with me," Windvoice says, clasping her hands behind her back. She wishes she knew who to pray to, or for, here.

Optimus inclines his head further, without looking up. His frame was built for the burden of a war he looks too exhausted to carry right now. "Thank you for coming. Ultra Magnus spoke of this place. A memorial. A reckoning." 

He sounds weary. 

" _Ave atque vale,_ " she murmurs. Metroplex's words. For everyone, she decides.

Optimus rises, and heaves a deep sigh before finding her with tired optics. She wonders just how long he's been out here. "I have trespassed on your patience, I think, Speaker Windvoice," he says, gravely.

When she automatically shakes her head, some platitude on her lips, he holds up a hand to stop her. "I owe you an apology. I should have come here long before, but matters on Earth required my attention. Much has happened, and I was not here when it mattered." Then he turns away from Megatron, and follows the path that winds over the crest of the bluff. "I'm sorry. Tell me of Unicron, once more."

_When is a Forge not a forge? When it is a hammer. When is a Forge not a forge? When it is a smith._

But she doesn't think Optimus wants a play on words, right now. Windvoice touches the crest of the Creation Lathe quietly, gathering her thoughts – and patience - for yet another attempt to explain things. 

"Cybertron reformatted itself after you sacrificed the Matrix, in Vector Sigma. But it wasn't enough. Power continued to drain out of the dead core. Some old damage or flaw stopped it from being able to produce new sparks over the years, and that was never resolved." She gestures down at the template under their feet. "When Cybertron died, it sent out a signal to call Unicron. Perhaps that was Unicron's purpose all along - to reforge us all. Our world was created artificially, and this hollow world is the mold into which that metal was poured, so long ago. If nothing could repair the damage done to the core, we could recreate it in the same fashion. So we evacuated everyone to safety, and allowed Unicron to do its work."

It's an explanation with a lot of assumptions. Optimus shakes his head before she's finished, and she knows she's failed again.

She wishes she could recapture the strange, pure clarity of those last few weeks on Cybertron. Even as she'd struggled to decipher Unicron's role from the fragmented texts of pre-Prime histories and Metroplex's memories, with only intuition to guide her, she'd always felt as though she were following the right path. When Arcee retrieved the Creation Lathe, its guiding light only confirmed what Windvoice already suspected. It came together so perfectly - Solus's Forge hammer in her hands, the dark Forge of sparks within Vector Sigma's core, and the smelting forge of Unicron's vast body. 

In another time and place, it might have been declared a holy tale and immortalized in the Way of Flame. Her intuition heralded as a blessing from Solus Prime herself.

Things don't always work out as they do in stories.

"And how did you know this? What source did you consult? Cybertron's origins are long forgotten, even by those like Alpha Trion." Optimus stops at the ridge of the hill and looks out over the fields that stretch to the horizon. Here and there, pale white plinths dot the northern edge of Megatron's field.

"Mainly, we consulted Metroplex. He was the one who told me Unicron's names, in Old Cybertronian: [σιδεράς]. A smith, hotter than a star." Windvoice checks herself before she falls into a song cadence as she recites the name. Neocybex is a stripped down, iron skeleton of a language. "Metroplex's memories were old, but he had no memory of anyone _fighting_ Unicron when it visited Cybertron before. Anyone who went within its killing aura died instantly. Which annoyed Starscream to no end, as you can imagine."

She scans Optimus's maskplate for any sign of comprehension or commiseration. Something. Anything.

Optimus shifts. His EM field is very quiet. "But you are sure it came once before?"

Windvoice sobers. "Yes. I'm not sure when, or why Unicron left the planet alone instead of reforging it. But this time, Cybertron called, and Unicron answered. The moons came to the template world and brought back vital metals needed to replenish Cybertron." She calls up her comm unit, firing off a message with Optimus included in the conversation. "I can get you a copy of the footage of Unicron pouring Cybertron into the mold when we arrived here. The archivist Rewind recorded it - someone you would trust. When you see it, I think you will understand better." She would have done it sooner, but transmissions through the space bridge can scramble audio-visual files. 

And she had hoped words would be enough. Instead, Optimus spent most of this past year repeatedly asking for clarification, while the Mistress of Flame visited Earth in person to pour her version of events into his ear like a poison.

"But when I first asked, you initially claimed to have gone to the core to try to repair Cybertron and alter the signal to drive Unicron away." Optimus pinches his brow, and shakes his head again. "You stole an artifact from Caminus to do it. Rather than seek help from myself or the Council beyond asylum for the evacuees, you allowed Starscream to stall until it was too late." The weight of judgment in his voice sinks in like a hammer blow when he says Starscream's name - the fulcrum on which his objections seem to hinge, consciously or not. "That you left the fate of Cybertron itself up to guesswork and speculation based on fragmented memories, with Starscream behaving erratically, is what concerns me, Windvoice. It was careless."

And he's still not _wrong_. Windvoice sets her jaw and keeps her optics leveled firmly at the horizon - back toward Metroplex, toward home. 

Toward the Combaticons who tried to blow up the Council, and Starscream, who claimed they were brainwashed by a mnemosurgeon rather than acting on his orders, and the tenuous, unspoken suspicion that she has: that the mnemosurgeon who attacked Decepticons that spoke of Swindle, and the mnemosurgeon who let Starscream in to rescue Windblade from Vigilem's overwhelming mind, and the mnemosurgeon who turned the Combaticons into ticking time bombs are all one and the same.

Airachnid. A murderer with a prior record on Eukaris. And Starscream most likely invited her in.

Starscream has a unique talent for being _an absolute idiot_. If she thought she could shake him and demand an explanation for any of this without setting off a firestorm, she would. Instead, all she can do is hope he feels some sliver of remorse, point him in a productive direction where he might redeem and rehabilitate himself, and press forward.

Perhaps one day he'll be stable enough for her to ask and receive a straight answer, rather than a knife in the back. The spark she forged in their minds was not warped beyond saving - no matter how much Starscream likes to pretend he is.

Nothing is easy, or simple.

And there is another piece of context that Optimus fails to consider. She clasps her hands tighter and straightens her wings. "I know," she says, frostily. "You think that I could have approached the Mistress of Flame as a supplicant and begged to use the Forge of Solus Prime. But she declared me blasphemer, dismissed me as Caminus's representative, and had me formally banished from Caminus months before; I already knew my request to make use of the Forge hammer would be denied."

 _That_ , she suspects Optimus does not understand for more mundane reasons. The Prime skirts as close to denial of his religious significance among Camiens as the Mistress of Flame can probably tolerate. Before things fell apart, Windvoice heard the way Optimus insisted that he was not divine, and that the people should have a say in deciding their leaders rather than obeying their divine right to rule without question. The strength of the influence the Way of Flame has over Caminus's very much not-secular government is a foreign concept to him. 

Sure enough, Optimus shifts, this time in discomfort. "Blasphemy is so serious a charge on Caminus?" he says, with a small, disapproving shake of his head.

Windvoice smiles, rueful. This, at least, she can help him understand. "I told you - the Primes are deified on Caminus. Not everyone on Caminus follows the strictest interpretation of the Way of Flame, but the overwhelming majority belong to the Way or to subsects that are recognized by the Sun Throne. Cityspeakers are technically priestesses of the Word of Caminus sect." She feels the struts of her hands creak as she tightens her grip. "But for a cityspeaker to publicly question the Mistress of Flame, who is the living will of the Primes - that is a grave offense."

Well. That, and saying she'd had just about enough of Primes. Having met Optimus and fought Liege Maximo, with Vigilem a low thrum of conflict in her very spark, Windvoice had not been in a very good mood at the time. 

She meant what she said. She's not sure what she believes in anymore, beyond the truth of her spark and the Lathe and the world turning under her feet. But the thought of meekly bowing her head - to the Mistress of Flame, or Optimus, or anyone short of Solus Prime herself - fills her with a quiet, burning anger.

"And so instead, you invaded Caminus and took what you wanted," Optimus says. 

And _that_ 's the line. Windvoice whirls on him, grief a clutching knot in her throat. "I didn't take what I wanted. Caminus -" Her vocalizer chokes off, and she's shaking with anger, the surface of the lake of her mind boiling -

Because _this,_ she cannot forgive the Mistress of Flame for. The _lie_.

" _Caminus_ brought me the Forge," she says, forcing her voice back under her control. Optimus towers over her, but she feels electric with the truth. "I barely set foot through the space bridge, and he carried the Forge hammer to me of his own will. Caminus has not moved in such a way in a million years, Optimus. He hasn't been truly _awake_ in longer than that. You don't understand what that means for us - that he spoke like that!"

A broad hand reaches for her shoulder. She yanks away. Her optics fizzle with static; she resets them before sparks can start streaming, because she's not crying like this. Not in front of Optimus. 

She breaks off and swallows down another churning wave of sparks. After a few slow, shuddering ventilations, she feels more under control. When she's sure of herself, Windvoice rolls her agitated wings, and turns away so that she can't see Optimus's face. "And I can't even go see him. I can't even ask how he knew what I needed, or thank him," she says, staring down the path that leads north without seeing it.

She wants to sound neutral. All she can hear in her voice is sorrow. 

Optimus is silent. She can sense the hum of his EM field behind her, but her own crackles with too much violent grief for her to read anything past it. 

Did anyone explain any of this to him? She doubts it. "The Mistress of Flame claims that the guards who witnessed my arrival were confused. I am no longer banished from Caminus: I am now wanted for blasphemy, the theft and despoiling of a sacred relic, and high treason." She crushes her left hand in her right, her jaw working as she kneels by the edge of the path. 

The spark flowers stir in a breeze too light to register as more than a faint brush along her wing sensors; she stares at all the dead spread out before her, and lets the sight reset her sense of a perspective. Her bitterness is nothing compared to the pain commemorated around them. 

One last vent, and she stops trembling inside. "I wish I could return the Forge. But I had to leave it behind in the core. And so if I ever return to Caminus, I can expect a trial in the Ignis Courts, over which the Mistress of Flame presides. A sentence of death, if I'm lucky," she finishes, as she rises to her feet. _And that is what waits if I concede to the Mistress of Flame in the Council,_ she thinks at Optimus, meeting his eyes defiantly. _This is the truth she wouldn't tell you._

The only question is who Optimus chooses to believe. 

"And if you are not lucky?" he asks, at last. 

Is he still capable of doubting the Mistress of Flame's word? Windvoice hopes so. "Empurata. A most ancient ritual of mutilation, amputating the hands and the face," she says. 

This time, her voice is pitched perfectly flat. Only one cityspeaker on record has suffered such a fate, their designation stricken from living memory along with their face. 

He shakes his helm with a shudder. She should hope so - she's done her research on just what empurata became, on Cybertron. Empurata is an older atrocity than some, but still classified as a war-crime under the Tyrest Accords. "I am familiar."

"I know." She folds her arms. She's worn out her patience for this conversation - perhaps for the rest of the day - and that's no small feat. If she'd thought Optimus more receptive over long range comms, maybe she wouldn't have to bare all her grief at once to get him to _listen._ "I am trying to understand the people I lead now. The people who have suffered through a war, and what came before." She lets the significance of that hang between them for a moment, before continuing. "I wish that I could reconcile with the Mistress of Flame. But I can't give her what she wants and still be the leader they need."

Where did it go wrong? When did the Mistress of Flame choose to reject Caminus's own actions because they weren't politically advantageous for her? The whole mess is an outright slap to the Word of Caminus sect's legitimacy. Windvoice isn't sure which frightens her more - that the Mistress of Flame has lost her senses, or that she was like this all along. 

This time, when Optimus reaches out and rests a heavy hand on her shoulder, Windvoice thinks his field feels...contrite. "I have consulted with the Mistress of Flame a great deal these past few years on Earth. She is - devout," he says. He says the word very carefully - a skeptic, trying to be polite. Then he lets her go and starts down the path with a weary shake of his head. "And I am aware that she has motives of her own. I will speak with her before the Council reconvenes."

"And what will you say to her?" Windvoice asks, staring after Optimus as he descends the hill.

"That Cybertron needs a leader," he says.

The wind picks up, stirring the fanblades in her wings.

Windvoice can only watch, silent, as Optimus walks away.

-

"You need a few?" Ironhide asks, sympathetically, when she reaches the edge of the field.

She shakes her head. Even if she did, they don't have time - the trip back to Metroplex will eat up the last of her free time. The sun is well and truly up in the sky, burning away the conductive dew on the spark flowers' petals, and Windvoice has a world to run. 

"Have you visited yours?" she asks, instead. 

Ironhide grunts and rolls his neck, his smile crooked as he stares out over the memorial. 

"Yeah," he says, at last. "But I'm looking to the future, whatever it may hold."

-

Starscream stalks into her office the second her aft hits her chair, his face a picture of snobbish disdain. Knowing him, he probably lurked at the end of the hall until she arrived to time his entrance for maximum dramatic effect. "How, pray tell, am I supposed to run interference when you insist on meeting Optimus in _private?_ "

More worryingly, the light through the window highlights his violet optics for a moment, and she sees the haggard discoloration of a recharge-deprived night beneath them. She knew Optimus's impending arrival and the Council meeting has him stressed, but this is a sharp downturn compared to just yesterday. His gait is stiff as he spins his usual chair around and lounges in it.

The last time he looked this bad, he was in his old, ill-fitting frame. And that's saying something. Anything that might affect Starscream's mental state is a serious issue. Windvoice sits upright and sets aside her datapad. "Starscream? Is something wrong?"

Starscream glowers at her. A brief flicker of irritation ripples through his field. "Nothing." The sarcasm in his voice is thick as oil. "Stop trying to change the subject. Have a nice spark-to-spark chat with Optimus, all by yourself?"

He throws at her like it's a serious accusation. Nice. The meeting wasn't a secret - Windvoice added it to her public schedule precisely so that everyone would know her whereabouts. She tries to be transparent. "He's difficult to read. He promised to speak with the Mistress of Flame about the issue of extradition," she says, meeting Starscream's optics steadily. He dislikes prolonged eye contact and often sneers at it, but she's found it helps convince him that she's being sincere and straightforward. Which he then hates for entirely different reasons.

Ugh.

He rolls his optics as he processes her words. "That means precisely _nothing_. They could be discussing how to unseat you as we speak." He drums his fingers along the edge of her desk. "I need to come with you to this next session, obviously."

A faint stutter disrupts the motion. Only for a microsecond, but it's there.

It's not paranoia, where Starscream's concerned; it's not possible to over-analyze his actions.

"Vigilem mentioned that you'd been to see him," Windvoice says, carefully. Casually.

Starscream glares right through her with wilting force. "Letting our duly elected leader of the planet be the only point of contact with a dangerous, rogue Titan would be stupid in the extreme," he says. Before she can ask _what_ the two of them have talked about, he presses on. "Why talk about _that_ when we should be talking about how Optimus is an easily led idiot who let the Mistress of Flame talk him into a series of terrible life choices once already? She's been grooming him into her vision of a Prime for months, and Trion's either malicious or senile enough to allow it. She encouraged him to push this ridiculous notion that Earth is a colony world. If he went to speak with her, I guarantee you it'll only lead to more of the same."

Well, when he puts it like _that_. Windvoice groans and leans back in her own chair, his sour, cynical look following her. "I explained the situation to him as best I could. Even if she persuades him otherwise, he can't break the logjam on the Council without a vote, which I don't see him getting any time soon." She wants to believe the best of Optimus. Of everyone, really. But she's realized in her time on Cybertron that that's not realistic. "Any advice?"

Starscream snorts and purses his lips, unamused. "Yes. The next time you decide to storm through the gates of Caminus and commit grand theft hammer, give me enough advance warning that we can send someone _else_ to draw the ire of a planetful of fanatics in your place."

"I don't think that would've worked," she points out, her smile crooked.

The corner of his mouth twitches with a repressed smirk. "Nonsense. Though I can and do respect your sadly underutilized flair for the dramatic." Then he flaps a hand toward the door. "Now get out, or I'll arrange that parade you desperately don't want held in your honor."

"This is _my_ office," Windvoice points out, even as she rises from her seat. "And you just said you're coming with m-"

A comm from Lightbright stops her before she makes it around the desk. Starscream stiffens at the same time.

LB: Speaker Windvoice? I'm trying to hail you and Starscream and Ironhide.  
WV: I'm with Starscream. What is it?  
LB: An incoming transmission from a starship, designation _Weak Anthropic Principle._ Looks like that ship is registered as a Decepticon vessel?   
LB: They're in a super wobbly orbit that uh. May crash into Trypticon at any given moment.  
LB: Metroplex is relaying some very angry sounding noises that I can't make much sense of, but I get the impression Trypticon is not happy.  
SS: Oh slag, ** _not them_**.  
LB: Should we refuse them entry to our airspace?  
LB: Because, um, the last time we activated Metroplex's ground-to-orbit scanners, Vigilem got kinda mad.  


"Are they a threat?" Windvoice asks, glancing at Starscream. His comment was...ominous.

Starscream drags a hand down his face with a groan of despair. "All Decepticons are a threat." When he peels his hand away he looks mortally offended. "Urgh. Except maybe _them_. Tarn once called them the worst Decepticons in history. Literally. He added a supplemental note onto Banzai-tron's files." 

Banzai-tron is not a familiar name; Tarn, unfortunately, is. Dragging the details of the Decepticon Justice Division's exploits out of Repository and Rewind's historical records has been a gruesome ordeal.

Windvoice scrunches up her nose. "Worst as in 'worse than the brutal, sadistic monsters with a record of sociopathic atrocities that Tarn commanded'? Or..."

Starscream rests his chin on his hand with a long sigh. "They're notorious for being singularly incompetent. If you thought Rodimus was bad, wait until you get a load of this."

-

She assumes that Starscream is overstating things. The _Lost Light_ and all its strangeness and silliness must surely be a fluke.

The _Weak Anthropic Principle_ takes the landing space outside of Metroplex as more of a suggestion than a hard rule. Windvoice is no expert in space vessels - Caminus's resources began to dwindle before she was forged, and long range space travel quickly became impractical - but she's fairly sure the engines are not supposed to be attached to the outer hull with organic glue, string, and duct tape. Non-functional rocks stick out of a sealed hole in the hull at an awkward angle that causes the ship to list to the side and land left-side first. The landing gear tears up a full circle in the dirt before the ship stops spinning and stops. 

It appears to be smoking slightly. 

Starscream stares in open-mouthed disgust. Ironhide winces with his whole body. Windvoice schools her expression into a polite, welcoming smile to make up for Starscream's - everything. 

Coughing smoke out of their vents, five mechs stumble out and collapse, wheezing. A sixth, substantially larger mech follows them in a strange alt mode, unbothered by the fact that the ship is on fire. He raises the wedge-shaped head of his alt mode toward the sky, red optics scanning the sky.

"Of course they brought him," Starscream mutters. When Windvoice tips her helm toward him in a silent question, he grimaces. "Behold, Grimlock. Former Decepticon, former Autobot, all uncontrollable rage. Last seen locked up in a cell on Garrus-9 for deserting to hunt down Shockwave. And he still has that _ridiculous_ dinosaur alt mode."

Windvoice glances at Ironhide on her other side. He looks reluctant to agree with Starscream, but concedes with a shrug.

Thankfully, despite his reputation, Grimlock seems calm. He placidly nudges one of the _W.A.P._ 's crewmembers with his nose until the jet rolls over with a groan. When none of them move, he lays down and vents without a word. He keeps one optic trained on her and Starscream and the rest of the welcoming committee, but says nothing.

The first Scavenger to get to his feet appears to have no alt mode. Like the rest of the crew, he's patched up with a haphazard paint job, like they've been living rough. He stares wearily down at his crew once he's up, resigned. "Why are you all like this?" he asks. 

It's a rhetorical question. 

Windvoice clears her vocalizer. One of the mechs emits a strangled shriek and starts flailing to get upright, while the others react more sluggishly. She carries on, since the first Scavenger seems to be paying attention. " _Weak Anthropic Principle_. Welcome to Metroplex. I am Speaker Windvoice, elected leader of Neo-Cybertron."

The lead Scavenger waves a cautious salute. "Uh, right. Krok, captain. We're the Scavengers." He jabs a finger at each of the crew in turn as they scramble to their feet in varying degrees of distress. "Misfire, Spinister, Crankcase, Fulcrum. And Grimlock."

"We're aware," Starscream says, his voice just dry enough to sound vaguely diplomatic.

Misfire bounds upright, slinging an arm around Krok's neck. "Yup, that's us!" he says, throwing up an Earth peace sign. Then he snaps a finger and points it at Starscream. "And just for the record - who is that guy, and why does he fill me with a sudden, inexplicable sense of familiarity and dread?"

She expects the usual reaction. "Starscream is one of my seconds in command -"

" _Oh **no**_ ," Crankcase says. This is the usual reaction.

"- and you are all welcome here," she finishes, without missing a beat. She elbows Starscream surreptitiously in the side when he starts to smile at them in what she suspects is a Decepticon intimidation technique. "Your war is over. If you arrive seeking peace, and lay down your arms, there is amnesty in place for all Autobots and Decepticons who come home."

Spinister narrows his eyes in a querulous frown, then shuffles his rotor blades and leans down to whisper in Krok's ear. His whisper is loud and perfectly audible. "If I surgically remove all of your arms, who's going to do mine?" he asks, as though he's given this quandary deep thought.

Misfire pats his arm sympathetically. "We'll think of something, Spinister. Later." 

Krok pinches the upper edge of his mask with another vent. "I don't know about home, but we don't want trouble with anyone," he says, tiredly. "We were following the signal of Decepticons in the area to see if they needed help. There was an active Warworld hanging around the sector for a while, so we circled around until it cleared out. Didn't realize Cybertron was, uh, relocating in the meantime."

Fulcrum leans on Grimlock's head for balance and inspects the bottom of his foot. "I think the planet's infested some kind of organic fungus. Should probably get that looked at," he advises Windvoice. He clears his vents with an increasingly nauseated expression. "Hrrrgh. Pollen. Do you even know what that _is_?"

"Powder?" Crankcase says.

"It's a method of _organic reproduction,_ " he insists. He sticks a finger into his mouth as though to purge his tanks. "Hggggkh -"

Windvoice is struck by a horrible sense of déjà vu, and in that moment silently vows never to leave these people in the same room as Rodimus's crew. 

Ever.

She gives them the short version. "Cybertron was smelted down by Unicron. It is being reforged inside the hollow template of this world. Until it's time for Cybertron to re-emerge, we have settled the surface."

Krok shrugs. "We'll take your word for it." He jerks his head at the rest of the Scavengers. "Guess we're on shore leave."

...Usually, people have so many more questions than that. The Scavengers take the news of their planet being eaten completely in stride. They collect themselves, with Misfire coaxing Grimlock out of his doze and Crankcase shaking his head over the smoke that still leaks out of the _W.A.P._ 's various openings. "I'm just saying," Fulcrum chatters, with absolutely no one paying attention to him, "if I see a single lotus being eaten around here, I'm torching the place. Once was enough."

Starscream wiggles his fingers pointedly at Grimlock before they can disperse. "About your gigantic, hulking, dinosaur-shaped friend, there," he says, delicately.

Misfire bristles and steps in between them and Grimlock. Considering how Grimlock glances down with a puzzled expression, the contrast is a little silly. "Honestly? If you want him, you go through us," he says.

The rest of the Scavengers look uncertain about this declaration. The terror on their faces directly correlates to how close they're standing to Starscream.

Windvoice elbows him again, less surreptitiously. "I did say amnesty, didn't I?" she says, smiling, as Starscream wheezes. Though the residents of Luna-1 occasionally throw fits over said amnesty, they haven't done more than mutter to express their discontent. She smiles at Grimlock when the Autobot sticks his head over Misfire's shoulder, quizzical but still strangely silent about the proceedings. "Greetings, Grimlock."

"I wouldn't," Starscream hisses. She ignores him.

Grimlock opens his mouth. His alt mode's teeth could easily enclose Windvoice's entire helm.

And yet when he speaks, the glyphs emerge garbled. "Gr - Greetings," Grimlock says, with clear concentration. 

The linguist within Windvoice sharpens her audial, fascinated. A greeting typically follows the deeply engrained Old Cybertronian form, even in Neocybex. [salve][speaker pronoun] [receiver pronoun] is the simplest form on Caminus, while Cybertronians tend to abbreviate it even more, dropping pronoun subglyphs or forming portmanteaus to convey the same meaning. A startling number just use [hello], borrowed from Earth. 

Grimlock recreates a synonymous greeting from completely unrelated sounds. The [gr-] of his own name designation, the hailing frequency of an incoming comm, and a combination of her name and his hammered together, in a way that almost matches her own greeting. 

It's remarkably similar to the way a damaged Titan is sometimes forced to communicate - layering glyph over glyph of meaning together to try to reproduce the words they've lost access to. With Titans, the issue is complicated by the fact their processors work on too vast a level for some concepts to be translatable. Some form of aphasia?

Misfire taps the underside of Grimlock's vast jaw, his expression nervous but determined as he glances around his group. When Krok tips his head toward Windvoice, and Fulcrum just shrugs - and no one else pays attention - Misfire scrubs the side of his helm and sighs. "I don't know if you're the person to talk to," he says in an undertone. "But. Look. We originally kept Grimlock around because, y'know, giant Autobot warrior who doesn't know when to quit. We needed the firepower, and we figured whenever we got back to Cybertron we could like - trade him in?" He winces at his own words. "If the Decepticons won, we bring back a nice prisoner. If the Autobots won, we still bring back a nice prisoner. Win-win."

"I...see," Windvoice says.

"Perfectly sensible," Starscream agrees.

Misfire glances up at Grimlock uncertainly, then straightens his shoulders. "But he's one of us now, and he's...he's not getting any better. He was messed up when we found him - locked up in stasis on a musty old Worldsweeper and processor-damaged. We've been trying to help him, but I don't know what to do to get him past this plateau. He can talk sometimes, but..."

Grimlock rests his chin on the top of Misfire's head with an audible _clunk_. 

"Better than him storming around and causing mayhem, I suppose," Starscream mutters. Tone deaf as ever.

"Starscream," she says, shortly. He twitches at the rebuke in her tone, then harrumphs. Windvoice dredges her own memory as she steps forward, pulling the designations and comm frequencies of the medics she knows in the area. "There are several independent practices in Censere, in addition to our main hospital in Metroplex," she says, taking a datapad from subspace to draw up the list. Ratchet is on there, as a locum surgeon at the hospital - but she can't, in good conscience, exclude him just because of her sense of foreboding. 

Grimlock's optics are bright with interest as she steps forward to give Misfire the list. Misfire looks paralyzed for a second before accepting it. She steps back and smiles. "As I said, you are welcome here. I hope that you are able to repair the damage."

"And we don't report to anyone?" At the shake of her head, Krok nods slowly. "Fine by me."

-

Unexpected arrivals tend to throw things off. Windvoice tries to keep her schedule open and fluid, so that there's time for any mech off the street to speak with her if they want to. But the Council session in progress this week crams her schedule full, and the Scavengers' arrival eats up the rest. By the time she and Starscream head for the conference room - with him insisting that he accompany her to help deal with Optimus, despite her assurance that she can handle it solo - they're doing so at a very fast power walk. The urge to zip quickly through the halls on the wing is strong. 

Two familiar faces intercept them on the way. "Wheeljack. Nautica," Windvoice says, with a warm, if harried, smile for both of them as they sprint to catch up. 

Starscream, in the process of swapping datapads from Windvoice's stack to his, and vice versa, seemingly at random, barely spares them a glance. "We have a Council meeting in ten. Make it quick."

"Rodimus-level concise. Got it," Nautica says, nodding in time with her steps. Her blue-tinted visor is full of on-going calculations. "The planet is vibrating super hard on a quantum level, and also someone climbed out of the molten core."

Windvoice stops dead. Starscream manages two more steps before he realizes he lost her and whips around. "Strike that. Less concise, more explanation," she tells Nautica. 

Nautica obliges. "I was at the western field site with Killmaster. His wand started emitting a dangerous amount of hyperspatial feedback in response to an ambient resonance effect, and -"

Starscream makes a cutting gesture with his hand and shoots a look of appeal toward Wheeljack, as though he'll find someone more reasonable there. "Strike that _again,_ " he says.

"Middling," Windvoice suggests.

Nautica screws up her mouth for a moment. "Killmaster claims the wand feedback was unrelated to the mech who came up out of the planet," she says. "But the two things happened pretty much within seconds of each other, and the mech took something with her. It looked like it didn't survive the core as intact as she did, but she took off right away without answering any questions." Nautica shakes her head. "Killmaster's wand stopped freaking out, but the new resonance effect seems to be originating from within the Necroworld -"

"Shoot the moons into the sun," Starscream says, instantly. This is his standard solution to any problem that can't be solved by conventional means.

" _No,_ " Windvoice and Wheeljack say, in perfect unison. "It's not an energy signal beaming into space like the one that summoned Unicron; the moons are innocent. Probably," Wheeljack adds, with a ghost of humor.

"Thistime, they are," Starscream grumbles, as he starts walking again. 

He has a point - if they plan to be on time for the Council meeting, they need to move. Windvoice picks up the pace with Wheeljack and Nautica half a step behind. "We'll try to get to the bottom of the resonance effect. Preferably before it reaches some critical point. Not sure yet whether it has something to do with Tailgate, so we're not alerting Rodimus yet." Wheeljack dims his optics and looks skyward, as though the idea of dealing with Rodimus again fills him with despair. "Might be a good idea for you and Ironhide to come down Metroplex's root system with us, Windvoice - they're the deepest point we have access to." 

Starscream stiffens beside her.

Windvoice finds a place to file this new information in her mind. A 'resonance effect' is just vague enough for her to hope it's not going to turn into an urgent threat. Someone emerging from the core, on the other hand - that's something else entirely. Particularly if the two events are related. "Thank you for letting me know." 

Wheeljack jerks another nod and ducks down a side hall. Before Nautica can dart after him, Windvoice waves her back. "If you and Velocity are free tonight, I am going to be in desperate need of a beverage with friends," she says, ruefully. 

If there's one thing guaranteed to distract Nautica from a scientific fugue in progress, it's the chance to discuss engex tasting. She claps her hands together with a delighted grin. "On it!"

Then she's gone and Windvoice is left with a restless, impatient Starscream. Considering how often he delayed meetings to suit _his_ whims when he was Chancellor of Cybertron, she's not sure he has a leg to stand on. 

"Come on, then. Let's see what the damage is," he mutters to her, as they enter the conference room.

\---

_Pax Cybertronia._

_One of Nova Prime's better ideas. Once we have stamped out the upstart terrorists diluting the Cybertronian race, we shall extend Cybertron's reach. It is a Prime's duty, after all. Like Prima of old, our empire will offer the unenlightened beings of the galaxy liberation, education, protection - from others, and from themselves._

_Until all are one._

\- Sentinel Prime of Iacon, <<speech: Cybertron, Ascendant>>

\---

Starscream seats himself on Windvoice's far side with a sniff, dropping a stack of datapads with a contemptuous clatter.

Optimus, who arrives punctually, says nothing about Starscream's ostentatious show of disdain, or about Starscream's presence in general.

The call opens much the same way it did the day before. This time Windvoice has to actively force her gaze away from the Mistress of Flame's screen. It feels like the Forge hammer itself is pounding against her spark chamber as she rises. "The Council delegates have recessed in order to consider whether to grant Earth full membership in the Council of Worlds. Your votes, Councilors." 

Starscream rolls his optics as Windvoice sits back to let the rest of the Council go first. He sinks low in his seat, one foot jiggling as he pretends to be absorbed in a datapad. His thrusters scrape against the underside of the table, like he can't sit still.

If he has some ulterior motive for being here and fidgeting a lot, Windvoice doesn't have the processing power to spare dissecting it. She refuses to let him distract her right now.

"Velocitron votes no. And if I have to repeat myself one more time -" Knock Out starts, riled, before Moonracer reels him in.

Vanquish and Fireshot exchange a pair of unreadable looks. "Devisiun abstains," Vanquish says, neutrally. 

"Eukaris votes no," Tigatron says. Though milder, his expression looks almost as exasperated as Knock Out's. "We are sorry, Optimus. An application from Jupiter might have stronger standing, if they wished to join. But not this."

The Mistress of Flame spares a quelling stare for each of the representatives in admonishment. She glances in Windvoice's direction, but only to frown deeply at Starscream, who ignores her. "Caminus supports the will of the Prime," she says, radiating stern disapproval as she shakes her head at them all. "We vote yes."

The dark, gritty connection to Elita's screen blurs with static for a moment. Then it refocuses on Elita. Strika is by her side today, her bulky armor a dark, indistinct purple that doesn't show up well on their jury-rigged camera. 

Somehow, even without her throne of repurposed corpses (located somewhere in Vigilem, possibly at the bottom of a garbage chute), Elita sits with an imposing presence. Her armor gleams like freshly spilled Cybertronian energon across her broad arms. The damaged point of her head crest remains as stark as it was the day Windvoice first met her, joined by more cracks where Carcer's First chose not to replace inessential parts. The Carcerians are isolated enough that Windvoice doesn't know whether Elita keeps the damage for religious reasons or as a badge of honor. 

A knot of anxiety sticks in Windvoice's throat as Elita leans forward. She tries to tell herself it doesn't matter - with Velocitron and Eukaris voting no, all Windvoice needs to do is join them and this is done. 

But Elita stares at Optimus with the aloof contempt of someone who imprisons Primes. "Carcer sees no point in pandering to this. No."

Windvoice takes no joy in the quiet, disappointed sigh that Optimus breathes on his side of the table. "And Cybertron abstains," she says, marking the line off her copy of the agenda with a touch of her finger. Then she mutes her audio feed to the Council, ignores Starscream's sneer, and turns to Optimus. "I'm sorry."

Not for the first time, she wishes they understood each other better. Earth matters to him - perhaps because it was one of the few worlds the Autobots managed to save, right at the end of the war. His sense of responsibility for it might even be something she could admire, if it didn't fly in the face of Earth's many protests against a Cybertronian presence.

Another ventilation cycle; then Optimus inclines his head to the Council. "I respect that the Council has made its decision," he says, addressing the group at large. 

Windvoice unmutes her connection in silence and lets the tense cables between her wings slowly relax. One hurdle down. 

And then the Mistress of Flame stands and takes up the instrument of office that has waited just outside the view of her holoscreen. She's traded the ceremonial Hammer for a staff of fire today, and when she paces on her end of the line, her amber, heavily embroidered cape reflects the flickering light. A ballad cape, Windvoice thinks. She can't make out any details. 

But the fire staff - _that_ ' _s_ an unpleasant shock. Windvoice recognizes it as one of the staves of the Ignis office. Holy justice.

She warned Optimus, and he promised to speak with her. Now the Mistress of Flame wants to bring things to a head. 

Starscream drums his fingers against the table. She can already hear the 'I told you so.' 

"I would ask that the Prime remain a moment longer. There is another matter we must consider which may concern him," the Mistress says, as she stops before the camera once more.

Knock Out pretends to brush dust off his finish. "What _now_?"

The Mistress of Flame adjusts her slim grip on the staff, and looks Windvoice directly in the eye. "Several serious charges have been laid against Speaker Windvoice and her second, the former Chancellor. We have postponed consideration of them due to Neo-Cybertron's transition." The Mistress begins to list them off. "Invasion of not one, but two Council colony worlds, with the former Chancellor's explicit permission and the assistance of Eukaris's delegates. Perpetuating the highest of blasphemies. Aiding and abetting the release of two ancient enemies of the Cybertronian race, and harboring the Traitor Titan under the excuse of an amnesty and council membership that was never meant to apply to him."

With every word, Starscream's EM field turns uglier. The staccato drum of his fingers slows, until he's stabbing the table, one finger at a time. Tigatron and Airazor bristle on their screens; Tigatron looks more exasperated by the Mistress than anything, while Airazor's expression is warier.

It doesn't help that technically, most of those charges are absolutely deserved. Windvoice boarded Carcer against Elita's will, with Starscream ordering the Cybertronian space fleet to provide cover fire, and Vigilem took advantage of the chaos to free Liege Maximo from his prison. And again, months later, she and Starscream invaded Vigilem to prevent Liege Maximo from attacking Cybertron, ultimately freeing Vigilem from the Carcerians' control.

Vigilem kept his promise not to take revenge on Cybertron, in light of Unicron's impending arrival. The armistice holds. But that means nothing to the Carcerians who dedicated their lives to a living prison. 

According to the Forgefire Parliament, Windvoice invaded Caminus as well. The fact that Caminus himself might disagree has been dismissed.

And sure enough, Elita rolls one foot idly, her helm resting on a closed fist as she joins the Mistress of Flame. "We swore an oath. And the extenuating circumstances that the Council used to delay this discussion no longer apply - Unicron is gone," she says, as relentless as she was denying Optimus. "Neo-Cybertron has made only token efforts to recapture Liege Maximo -"

"We sent a dedicated task force," Windvoice counters. Chromia's task is now a matter of official record; Arcee's participation, less so. She's not sure whether Optimus is aware of Arcee's current whereabouts, or whether Arcee would _want_ her former leader to know. "In addition to your own hunters, who refused to cooperate with our efforts. I can't strip the planet to chase down one mech."

From the curl of Elita's lip, that's exactly what she wishes would happen. "All we have ever asked is that two fugitives from justice be returned to serve out their sentence for their crimes. What excuse is there to leave Carcer free to unleash war on Cybertron again?" she demands.

The Mistress of Flame folds both hands over her staff. "And we want justice for the theft and destruction of our most sacred relic. This spits in the face of Solus Prime. There must be consequences."

Starscream snaps. His foot clangs on the ground as he bolts upright.

Windvoice thrusts her arm out without looking and catches him across the chest. She's shaking. "I am no longer a citizen of Caminus," she says, through numb lips. It hurts to say it out loud. "I refute any claim that the Way of Flame has the right to extradite a citizen of another Council world who is no longer a member of the faith. Any consequences for my actions to save Cybertron must be judged by this Council, not the Ignis Court."

The Mistress of Flame raps the bottom of the fire staff against the floor. "Apostate. You profane Metroplex with your presence. You are unworthy of the authority bestowed upon you."

"Can we _please_ get to the point of all this?!" Knock Out yells over all of them. Moonracer looks pale at his side, her fingers laced tightly over her datapad as the conversation volleys between them.

The Mistress of Flame slams her staff down again; Windvoice fights the reflexive flinch, the instinct to drop to a bow in acknowledgement. "We assert that Speaker Windblade was elected to office under false pretenses. She is unfit to lead Neo-Cybertron and actively endangers its people by consorting with the Traitor Titan, who broke the spark of Caminus himself," the Mistress says, coolly. "We offer a compromise. We call for her resignation, and for Neo-Cybertron to be annexed safely under the leadership of a true Prime."

Optimus stands up on his side of the table.

His silent acquiescence is damning.

"Optimus," Windvoice says.

"Oh, here we go again," Starscream says. His teeth are bared in something Windvoice can't call a grin.

Optimus's mask reveals nothing but quiet, regretful resolve. "Neo-Cybertron is vulnerable. I am here to help. I will always protect Cybertron," he says, glancing straight ahead at the rest of the Council.

Elita grimaces like she's drinking spoiled engex. "Carcer seconds," she says, as Strika shakes her head.

And before anyone else can join in, a familiar, darkly amused voice fills the room.

[Vigilem opposes.]

\---

_"I just want to go home," said the astronaut._

_"So come home," said ground control._

_"s o c o m e h o m e," said the voice from the stars._

_-_ [@jonnysun, <<Human Twitter>>](https://twitter.com/jonnysun/status/517461703630794752?lang=en)

\---

The rust desert burns under the dying light of a red star. 

The singularity of the galactic center tends to distract from this. This close to the core quasar, the accretion disc is a crackling, luminous veil that blooms across the sky. Antilla's star is only one among many, occluded by the thick clouds of swirling stellar dust drawn inexorably toward the singularity's maw.

Cybertronian ships are no longer state of the art compared to the galaxy at large, but they are swifter than anything Eukaris devised in all its long years of isolation. Those with experimental engines can sometimes accomplish feats that defy physics, and in those brief flashes of brilliance, Cybertronians surpass themselves.

Airachnid commandeered a vessel less likely to blow up under her feet. It takes her a year: navigating the unpredictable gravitational disruptions as one nears the galactic core proves less of an issue than weaving between the grasping reaches of the Galactic Council and its offshoot, the Black Block Consortia. Despite their secessionist disputes, the Council's seat of consolidated power holds strong in the central sectors of the Galaxy, and anti-mechanoid sentiment is a fact of life. More than once, Airachnid envelops herself in silken webs and cuts the engines, drifting silently under the radar of Council patrols.

They are complacent, this deep in the galaxy. The Stentarian Shattering occurred out of living memory for the quicker-lived species, some of whom have evolved and moved on to a different phase of existence in the sixteen million years since. The Cybertronian civil war, with all of Megatron's anti-organic technoism, raged on the untamed outskirts of Council territory along the Orion Arm - they're little more than distant rumors here. Just enough to whet the edge of anxiety and disgust that fills these hapless organics - the fear of something _other_ on their borders.

Idiots. The knife has waited at their backs all along.

Airachnid lands amid the rust dunes and disembarks. The air tastes thin and dry, the dull red rust flakes sharp enough to score her plating and the inside of her intake when the wind picks up. It is a sharp, alien contrast to the wet atmosphere of Eukaris. Here and there, mounds and fragmented spires of metal arch out of the wastes, the ancient machinery worn away by the vexatious winds until they resemble little more than broken spinal struts, snapped mid-convulsion.

It is an illusion. 

When Onyx Prime rises from the depths to greet her, he uncoils like a well-oiled machine, all grace. His armor shines deep blue and gold. It has been an age since last she saw him, but time has not diminished the cruel glory of his bladed wings or the sharply etched beauty of his face. When she bows, she comes barely to his knee.

"You have come far, dear spy," he murmurs, resting the curl of a long talon against the underside of her chin. "Tell me."

Other forms prowl the edge of the valley in the dunes, fading in and out of the swirling cloak of dust and rust. They are not Chelan, nor of any beast-mode Titan Airachnid knew in the old times. No Titan ever came to a world this barren. 

If they have a name, Onyx does not offer it. If they are of anyone, they are of him and him alone.

Airachnid lets her helm drop back, the cords and fuel lines of her throat bared, and smiles. The black lines of Vigilem's true face carve down her cheeks - but that is not her oldest allegiance. 

"Cybertron is gone," she tells her Prime. "Unicron came, and consumed it. Those who survive followed Death to another planet, where they believe Cybertron will be reforged. They are ruled by one of Caminus's children and the false-faced Cybertronian who puppets her, plagued by his paranoia and hallucinations. Trion grooms another Prime with his stories, but he obsesses over a planet of organics and pays little heed to Cybertron itself." 

She pauses for a moment, drinking in the sight of Onyx's four red, calculating optics with the adoration a true Prime is owed. She waits until he has processed all of this and it is safe to continue with graver news. "Chela's central processor is destroyed - blasted by the one called Starscream. And Liege Maximo and Vigilem are both free."

All four optics cycle and focus on her with terrifying speed. The tip of his talon pieces the soft seam of a fuel line as it shifts, and Airachnid rises on the tips of her alt mode's arching legs to prevent a full puncture. Onyx shuffles and flares the interwoven blades of his wingspan.

His sharp teeth emerge in a slow, cold smile. "And what does that make you, dear spy?" he says.

Airachnid dims her optics and raises her hands out to either side as she relaxes, and waits. The _draca_ circling the metal wreckage that surrounds Onyx's court watch from above with hungry eyes - gold and orange and blue and green and burning red. The trickle of energon deeps, pouring down the curved edge of Onyx's hand in a quiet sacrament. 

All gods who receive homage are cruel.

Onyx Prime laughs. The wind picks up, carrying the weird, wild shriek of laughter as his army joins him. The talon withdraws, and Airachnid savors life as Onyx scoops her up into a vast palm and pumps his other claw to summon his ship from beneath the desert rust.

"My Prime," she says, dipping another bow and folding her hands over her chest, the slender needles of prophecy tucked safely away. As the wide panel at the base of Onyx's wrist transforms out of the way, she kneels to plug into one of his auxiliary connections. She feeds him everything she has about the current state of Cybertron as of a year ago, those players unwittingly arranged against him, and all the myriad connections she mapped between them. 

Then she settles back on her heels as the optical craft rises to block out the sun, one baleful eye eclipsing the other.

"I think I shall bring them a gift," Onyx muses, as wing after wing beats free of the rust and his army flies into the iris. "Liege should do quite nicely."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Optimus is the dark side of this image:  
> 


	3. Chapter 3

\---

_Nothing vast enters the lives of mortals without ruin._

\- [Sophocles of Tetrahex](https://whispers-for-the-king.tumblr.com/post/154700850244/nothing-vast-enters-the-lives-of-mortals-without), <<Antigonick>>, trans. Anne Carson of Earth

\---

They accomplish absolutely nothing for the rest of the meeting. It lasts a record fifteen minutes before the Devisens start yelling in chorus and Elita smashes the Carcerians' end of the connection with her fist.

Windvoice is too furious to track Optimus's response to all this. She's too furious to contribute much of anything, really.

When Starscream stops smugly sneering at the chaos and starts to fidget again, she smacks her hand against the underside of the table and finds the device magnetized to the table just above his knee. He twitches, his smile frozen in place, when he tries to retrieve it and finds her white-knuckled grip instead.

As soon as the conference call drops, Windvoice explodes out of her seat, concealing the device in the shuffle of datapads, and locks her arm through Starscream's to haul him out of the room. Two can play at that game.

If Optimus expects niceties out of her, he can wait until she's sure she won't scream at him.

The second her office door shuts behind them, she whirls on Starscream and shoves the device at him. "What were you _thinking_?" she hisses.

"Oh? Is there a problem?" Starscream asks, inspecting the speaker as though he's never seen it before. He has the audacity to look bored.

She can't deal with this right now. "Yes! There is a problem! You brought a piece of Vigilem here!"

She knows it like she knows the back of her own hand: one of the embedded speakers from Vigilem's walls. Something Starscream could've only taken if Vigilem let him do it.

It is even _less_ physically possible to strangle a Titan than it is a regular sized Cybertronian. But by Solus, _she's going to rip both their heads off._

He tosses it back to her, with a spin that means she has to juggle to keep from dropping it. "No one has any proof of that. And even if I had done such a thing, it was only for _your_ benefit," he says, sidestepping her with a roll of his eyes.

And the worst part is, he might actually think that.

Does he not realize what he's done? She sets the speaker down on her desk, hands trembling with rage. "No. You're smarter than this! This - all this has done is re-antagonized Elita-1! The only reason she hasn't pressed the issue so far is because Vigilem stopped short of actually _participating_ in the Council. There's even _less_ reason for him to have a seat on the Council than Optimus, and that's saying something. Now, with her already backing this -"

Starscream stalks around her, his stride too antagonistic to be called 'pacing.' "My mistake. I should just let Optimus oh-so-reasonably grandstand his way into taking over the fragging planet!" he snaps back. He gestures wildly at the view of Metroplex's skyline. "Who do you think this hunk of junk would choose? You, or Optimus?"

"I - what?" Windvoice clutches her head. Though now that he mentions it, oh yes, great idea Starscream, bring part of Vigilem into Metroplex's systems without his permission and see how well Metroplex takes it!

Is he seriously accusing _Metroplex_?

He laughs, rapping an insolent knuckle against the window. "Your precious Metroplex spent _millions_ of years as an Autobot. Optimus raised him up from under the blasted ruins of Nyon the second he found the Matrix, and he was a loyal Autobot base of operations for three quarters of the war." Starscream directs his voice at the ceiling, high and mocking. "How did it go again, Metroplex? 'Know that when you call, I shall come'?"

That's – that's so divorced from how Windvoice knows and relates to Metroplex that she can only stare at Starscream, taken aback. Part of her instinctively denies that could have anything to do with this mess right now.

(Another part tries to tally what that could mean. Holds her history with Metroplex up against Optimus's, and finds her side wanting.)

"This isn't the war, Starscream. Metroplex isn't the enemy." she says. She keeps her voice steady, trying to stay calm. One of them has to.

Starscream glares. It's not directed at her; none of this is directed at _her_ , and that's the problem. "As long as Optimus prances around with that glittery, ornamental bauble sticking out of his chest like a tumor, you can't trust anyone. _Especially_ not this city. Metroplex would sell you out for a shiny trinket in a sparkbeat!"

He practically shrieks the last accusation at Metroplex's ceiling. Very few people can screech like Starscream on a tear.

To her surprise, Metroplex replies. Most of the comm is lost in a bleat of binary as one of his speakers crackles to life. [Wind-voice?]

Vigilem's smooth drawl is effortless, in comparison. [Really, this is embarrassing. Do I need to give you three some privacy to work this out?] he asks, from the desk.

"Well, what's the point of that now?" Starscream glowers out the window like the building across the street personally offended him on a deep level.

[Tch. I'm surprised you haven't given this one an aneurysm yet.]

Another blip of frustration from Metroplex. The panel beside the door turns on, the usual security specifications covered in fragmented glyphs. Metroplex pushes through the vocal fry. [Vigilem[traitor][Caminus[?]][ **warning** ]]

Vigilem's voice turns frosty. [I'd like to see you try. I've often wondered whether dormancy rusted your processor -]

[Query/concern: [?]]

[Now, you ask?] Vigilem snorts. Then, after a considering pause - [Abandon Speaker Windvoice, and I'll tear you up, roots and all. You couldn't take me alone. Not then, and not now. Remember that well.]

And, with a sharp blast of static that makes Windvoice wince, Vigilem's comm device shorts out in a puff of bitter smoke.

"Well. That's not ominous at all," Starscream says, as though he's commenting on the weather.

The smug satisfaction makes her snap.

She rounds on him. "You need to talk to Wheeljack."

Starscream pulls away from her, scoffing. "Really, now -"

She steps between him and the door, and instantly feels the prickle of a targeting system across her sensors. And that's only what she _can_ sense. Starscream's sneer turns into a dead-eyed stare the second he feels cornered. "You're doing it again. Making desperate, wild plays to try to win a temporary advantage," she says, before he can interrupt her. "You're telling yourself that you can't see any other solutions, that this is the only way to survive with your power and position intact. The last time you did that, it _blew up in everyone's faces_."

Starscream stops dead. She knows that look in his eye: the swap from red to purple optics didn't change that stare of furious, mutinous denial. She pushes on, ruthlessly. The next words are the hardest, but the most necessary. " _You are not alone_."

She stops to vent while he stares at her, still wild-eyed. Calm. A lake. Starscream needs to be managed, not fought, even on his good days. She can't do that if she boils over with frustration. "I appreciate what you're trying to do. But fanning conflict between Vigilem and Elita, and Vigilem and Metroplex, will only spiral into something none of us can control."

Bumblebee tried to explain it to her, once. Starscream, presented with reasonable arguments that might make any rational mech reconsider their actions, assumes that anyone who opposes him is an enemy. He takes for granted that he's alone, beset on all sides by threats, and works from there. Any attempts to cooperate with him are viewed as an attempt to learn his vulnerabilities. He's contrary, distrustful, and driven by an alarmingly over-sensitive self-preservation instinct.

It seems like a frighteningly lonely way to live.

She can see the exact moment when her refusal to follow his script stymies him. Being told he's appreciated makes him freeze, and then narrow his eyes at her in suspicion. When she just stares him dead in the eye, open and honest, Starscream flinches. "Fine then. Get deposed, see if I care," he mutters, sullenly crossing his arms.

Time to walk him back in something approaching status quo. A large part of Windvoice wants to shake him and demand to know how he could act so _stupid_ – but it won't help. It never helps. "You do care. I can tell, because it makes you unreasonable," she says instead, wryly.

Starscream presses a hand to his chest in slow horror. "I - I am insulted. How dare you insinuate I give a frag about any of you people - this is a tragedy, how damaged your processor must be -"

His field only grows more mortified when Windvoice very carefully, telegraphing her movements, picks up his free hand and pats it reassuringly. "There, there. We won't let Optimus annex Neo-Cybertron."

Perfect sincerity, she finds, is the best kind of sarcasm.

Starscream glares. "Optimus is like a bad habit. He just keeps happening," he says, averting his eyes.

That fact that she's this close to agreeing with him stings in its own way. "You're only this fatalistic because you're upset," Windvoice informs him sternly, and lets his hand drop when Starscream tugs away. "Come on. We'll figure this out."

-

Optimus leaves a comm in her inbox late in the evening, well after Windvoice leaves the office to fly home.

Sometimes, self-care involves closing the inbox, and getting astonishingly overcharged.

Nautica and Velocity arrive in high spirits. Nautica carries a bag that clanks in a way that says the party has arrived.

"Come in, I beg of you. I have a Starscream-induced headache," Windvoice says, with a laugh. Well - he's responsible for 85% of it, at least. Coordinating a response to the Mistress of Flame's latest move hurts her spark, not her head.

Velocity starts digging around in Nautica's satchel and brandishes a purple bottle. "No, that's from overclocking your processor to keep up with the day-to-day demands of running an incipient world," she says, her teal lips quirked in a smile. "I prescribe shots for both."

"Same difference!" Windvoice steps back to let the two of them inside, pretending to press the back of hand to her forehelm in a swoon.

Ironically, of the Camiens on Neo-Cybertron that Windvoice feels closest to – enough to unwind and converse with, without the weight of her responsibilities stifling her – Nautica and Velocity are as unversed in the ways of normal Camien socializing as she is. Windvoice dedicated herself to her cityspeaker training with a single-minded devotion that left little time for a normal life. Nautica and Velocity both struggled to befriend others back home, their personalities just offbeat enough not to connect well with others. She, Chromia, and Nautica had plenty of time for small talk as they tried to save Metroplex beneath the sea, but when the subject of amicae came up, Nautica's eager chatter always faltered.

Now, as the two set up camp around Windvoice's low table in the main room, there's a new sense of ease. Nautica insists on pouring them out a cube of straight engex so they can appreciate the quality, while Velocity prepares the mixers. The engex is so pure it's almost transparent, an electric white-blue. "Here we go! Quadruple-filtered solar engex. Don't tell Swerve I have this," Nautica says. "Can I get the usual please, Lotty?"

"You got it!" Velocity takes a shaker full of gold flakes from her subspace and starts mixing.

Velocity makes a _very_ strong Sunspot Slingshot. That, a trivia game, and two Cardassian Sunrises later, Windvoice finds herself sprawled out on the couch beside the table, one arm flung over her face as the ceiling sparkles. "Why do things happen so much?" she asks.

Nautica raises a half-empty cube in a toast. She's been sipping judiciously while Windvoice and Velocity try and fail to defeat her in the realm of increasingly obscure trivia. Windvoice has history and Velocity has medical knowledge, but Nautica has over two hundred and fifty academic degrees. They were doomed from the start. "Hear, hear."

Windvoice rolls over. Her optics blur as they scramble to keep up with the rest of her helm. "How have you two been holding up?" she asks, propping herself up with an arm under her cheek.

At some point, Velocity draped herself along Nautica's side; she looks ready to doze off despite the buzzing overcharge. Nautica smiles. "Aside from the past few days, it's been a nice break. Don't know how much longer Rodimus will be able to sit still, but the _Lost Light_ is never boring, that's for sure."

The fact that the _Lost Light_ itself is still technically MIA, with complete radio silence from Getaway and the other mutineers for over a year, seems to be irrelevant to its crew. They're tightly bonded; Windvoice isn't sure who they'll successfully recruit from Neo-Cybertron when Rodimus finally decides to chase down his wayward ship, but the core group definitely planned to stick together before Tailgate vanished.

Now, she doesn't know what their plans are. She needs to line up another talk with Rodimus…soon. Soonish.

Velocity stirs a little. "We were thinking about visiting Caminus to have an official ceremony, but -" a loose shrug, and a sleepy smile "- well. Chaos tends to follow in our wake."

Nautica vents heavily, shoulders slumping. "And the paperwork you need to fill out to file for nonresident amicae endurae! I'm pretty sure Brainstorm is disqualified just on principle. Nightbeat and Rung have said they don't mind letting the Oath stand for itself if Lotty and I go, but..." She sags sideways onto Velocity, so that they're supported solely by mutual slump. "Deep sigh."

"You don't need to vocalize it," Windvoice says. It seems like the thing to say, in her buzzed daze.

Velocity shakes her head. "Deeper sigh."

"Hadopelagic sigh," Nautica adds.

She wishes she could help. But her ability to approve visas to Caminus is currently non-existent; the Mistress of Flame made it clear that Caminus is closed to Neo-Cybertronian immigrants and visitors, and the remaining Camien expats are on thin ice. "You should take them. Though you're right - I'm not sure Brainstorm would make it past security." While Nautica giggles, Windvoice feels a wistful tug. "Chromia and I spoke our vows under the diamond gate in Cordis. It's worth it."

Even if that feels like a lifetime ago. The diamond gate survived Menasor's rampage by sheerest chance; the garnet gate and onyx gate, for conjunx and aemulae endurae respectively, didn't fare as well. The last Windvoice heard, they planned to rebuild the gates from the shards of the originals, filling the cracks with gold.

A huff, as Nautica resettles herself. "Maybe when the Mistress loses the attitude!"

From the dimmed light of Velocity's optics, she's not long for the waking world. After another hour or so of relaxing in their company, Windvoice pleads a morning meeting when Nautica offers her another shot, and the two collect themselves and prepare to head home.

"You want us to stay over? We can make this a real sleepover," Velocity says, still mumbling a little. She has to cuddle Nautica to stay upright.

"Maybe next time. I need to be conscious tomorrow, unfortunately."

She walks them down to the ground exit and leans against the side of the door as the two wind their way around a grove of trees down the street. The silver bark glitters in the light from her open door, the thin blue lines of circuitry and biolights illuminating the sidewalk.

[Windvoice,] Metroplex says, after she emerges from the washracks and settles in for the night.

He sounds very quiet. He rarely speaks outside his processor chamber, but the silence since Starscream's screamed challenge has been…perceptible.

"Don't drain yourself," she says, resting a hand on the wall for a moment. She sits on the edge of the berth, her wings leaden with exhaustion as the engex runs its course. "Let's talk in the morning, alright?"

Silence falls again. She lays down on the berth as her processor starts to click over into defrag and recharge mode for the night.

Something rumbles in the wall, then stills. The light beside the berth dims of its own accord. [Choice: Windvoice.]

It takes her a moment. With a tiny jerk, Windvoice lifts her head, her spark pulsing. "Oh," she manages, before her vocalizer chokes up and words fail her.

Thankfully, Metroplex seems content with that.

-

She jolts awake.

The walls are rumbling again – not an uncommon sound, this close to the heart of Metroplex. Windvoice adapted to the rhythm of Metroplex's settling frame long ago; she finds it reassuring. A sign that Metroplex is alive.

That's not what woke her up. Something's off.

[Arrival: Musa Vitae,] Metroplex informs her. For once, his tonal glyphs are perfectly clear – [surprise; salutation]

She translates the Old Cybertronian title instantly and nods along as though that makes perfect sense, her processor still fogged with sleep.

Then she bolts upright. "Wait. What?!"

The mech crouched at the end of the berth raises a hand, her golden eyes dancing in the dark.

"Hello again!" the Muse of Life says.

\---

_Sing in me, O Muses, and through me tell -_

\- traditional invocation to the Muses of the Core

\---

_ Sing in me, O Muses, and through me tell _

_ Of the distant dead [automatons] who fought as slaves, never knowing peace _

_Of the one who woke first, who rebuked the gods [alt – owners] in their names _

_ Of the fivefold faces of wrath, mirth, cunning, death, and judgment, who hated the whole world _

_ Of Vivere, sweet Muse of Life, who stepped into the Forge, and Mnemosyne, sweet Muse of Memory, who called her back [alt – recalled/remembered her] _

_ Of the Titans, Knights, and Moons in the shattered sky _

_ Of the First and Final War [trans. note – tense error? utilizes future indicative rather than pluperfect indicative subglyphs] _

\- Eucryphia of the Citadel of Light, <<The Hyperuranian Suite[section 3: from a dead world's pyre](http://swinburnearchive.indiana.edu/swinburne/view#docId=swinburne/acs0000001-01-i035.xml;query=breath;brand=swinburne)>>; trans. Repository of Tetrahex

\---

Windvoice screams for five whole seconds before Metroplex's words sink in.

The Muse of Life waits patiently, bemusement in her field as she continues to peer at Windvoice. Her frame is covered in clear spark chambers; the one in the center is surrounded by old scars. Long panels of rosy gold plating hang from her back and fan around her waist, draping over the edge of the berth.

She's impossible. A vision that walked right out of the stanzas of the oldest historical epics and decided to hover at the end of her berth like some kind of gargoyle in the middle of the night. The Muses of the Core are more mythic than even the Knights of Cybertron: attendants to Vector Sigma, inspirers of art and music and invention, rarely seen even before the breaking of the Thirteen Primes. Even on Caminus, their existence is considered one step away from allegorical. More metaphorical than real, physical beings.

Windvoice is sure that once the awe passes, she'll worry about the fact that Metroplex just let a figure out of legend walk straight into her room without asking.

If this is actually just engex-fueled recharge feedback addling her processor, Windvoice will never drink again.

For now, she stammers her way through a greeting. "Vivere. Muse of Life. You're _alive_?"

That's…incredible. The Autobot/Decepticon war scoured the planet. If Windvoice gave any thought to it at all, she assumed the Muses were another thing lost in Cybertron's horrific wars, or the core's slow death. Collateral damage, or worse.

"I'm always alive," Vivere says, with a slow roll of her shoulders. "I meant to thank you earlier, but I was eaten. These things happen, you know."

And, like a slap to the face, Windvoice remembers where she's seen that frame type before. Greyed out and silent, in the hollow pit of the core above Vector Sigma. "Oh - sweet Solus - we left you in the core!" she says, aghast.

Starscream had wanted to _shoot her_. A Muse! _This is why they no longer have nice things!_

"So it goes," Vivere says, cryptically. Like being left behind to be swallowed by Unicron is no big deal. She bobs and shifts her weight in constant, restless motion. Leaning forward, she beckons Windvoice with both hands. "Here. Let me look at you."

Right. Windvoice is still sitting on the berth, her legs yanked up reflexively from her momentary panic. She should be standing, or bowing, or - or something! She shoots to her feet and dips her head respectfully.

If she thought Optimus's EM field was overwhelming, Vivere's is ubiquitous: it laps against the edges of the room and overflows, inundating Windvoice's sensors. But the Muse's mood never fully overrides her own. Vivere's continued interest and curiosity remains keenly distinct from Windvoice's emotions as Vivere peers at her face.

Her paint prickles under the scrutiny. When was the last time she buffed her face? She's never felt so naked without her old facepaint. "What about the others - the other Muses of the Core. Are they...?" Windvoice trails off.

"All my sisters bar one have returned to be reforged with the rest. It is what they wanted," Vivere says. She springs down off the berth a second later, her hands flying away from Windvoice's face as she lands with an oddly light tap. "How they can lay down there boiling when there's so much to _do,_ I haven't the faintest. I couldn't sit still if I tried!"

The Muse spins away and darts to the far wall to inspect the art-holos Windvoice hung on the wall.

"I have so many questions," Windvoice says. She wonders where she would even begin. The thought of how old this mech is – if the Muses truly are as ancient as the stories say – staggers her.

Vivere hums. "Curiosity. An excellent quality." Then she spins and tweaks the side of Windvoice's helm, a flicker of mischief open in her EM field. "And working audials! You'd be surprised how many people switch them off and only listen to what their processor tells them. Useless, gibbering calculator."

Then the Muse whirls away again, and walks straight into the wall.

Said wall immediately melts out of the way. Vivere walks into the dark maintenance spaces behind Metroplex's walls, humming to herself as she descends.

Windvoice gapes, then runs after her. The hole remains open, but she skids to a stop when the steps that Vivere's using to waltz down into Metroplex's internals fold back into the walls. "Wait - hang on! Where are you going?"

The Muse waves over her shoulder. She descends the stairs with floating steps, arms out to either side for balance. "Who can wait when there is so much to be _doing_?" she calls back, before she vanishes into the dark of Metroplex's internals.

Very carefully, Windvoice puts her foot out over the gap.

When no mysterious steps emerge under her feet, she retracts her leg.

"...Metroplex?" she says, after a minute.

[Vivere - excitable [long-standing resignation to the inevitable]], Metroplex informs her, wearily.

…Fair enough.

She steps back into her room, and watches the wall melt back together. Then she buries her face in her hands. "I _really_ need to sleep."

-

"Rough night?" Lightbright says, sympathetically, when Windvoice stops by to visit Metroplex. Of the three cityspeaker apprentices who chose to stay this past year, Apocrypha and Brightbolt are the two who tend to hover whenever Windvoice is nearby; they hang in the doorway, their fields fervent with hero worship.

She calls them apprentices still because technically neither the Mistress of Flame nor the Word of Caminus cloister has excommunicated them yet. Lightbright dances on the edge, as well. If they all went home to Caminus right now this second, they might still be accepted back into the fold, with a slap on the wrist, to complete their training.

But associating with Windvoice will leave a mark. It would be safer for them to go home now, before they're as tarnished as she is.

"Starscream," she says. That's all she needs to say, really. Everything else, she's still processing.

Lightbright winces. "Oof. Well, we're always happy to see you up here!"

She dips her head to fit the triangular points of her helm under the fall of a heavy cable that drapes overhead as she helps Windvoice through the mess around Metroplex's processor. Despite the apparent disarray, the room's overhaul is almost complete: fresh wires, all new casings and flooring, and new emergency connections and consoles so that Metroplex can access backup systems if he sustains damages to the main set again. Most of what lays piled up around the room are the old wires and cables, waiting to be taken down and repurposed elsewhere in Metroplex's body to improve his sensor coverage.

Upgrading a Titan is a challenging, slow process. Newer software patches that work for Cybertronian processors can glitch irreparably on processors and ancillary processors of this scale. The Autobots attempted it, at some point, but those upgrades were the first to break down when Metroplex was hurt; his original forged systems survived the longest. Windvoice hopes they've struck the right balance in ensuring backwards compatibility.

While she steps up to Metroplex's processor, Lightbright hops down into one of the open floor panels to assist the third apprentice, Kalium, as she shoves a mountain of thread-bare wire coils out of her workspace. Lightbright shoots Windvoice one last encouraging smile before vanishing into the crawl space.

Most of Metroplex's thoughts are consumed with the on-going overhaul: a fixed set of bright pink glyphs informs anyone who can read them that the processor chamber is at 84% and climbing, monitoring the primary connections to the sensor network and other subsystems. The stronger the connections, the busier the surface of Metroplex's mind becomes: he's alight with green and electric blue readouts, with patches of orange warning and pinpricks of red. It's a major improvement over where they stood less than a year ago, when his thoughts were a solid, pain-hazed wall of red and orange alarms.

A cloud of glyphs swarms out to greet her when she places a hand on the side of his brain module. The new ground wire network keeps a spark of static from arcing from the metal to her hand. "Metroplex."

Metroplex promptly presents her with a swirl of greeting and the readouts she used to request most often to figure out what had broken down during the night. She doesn't need to ask anymore; Metroplex knows, and as repairs progress, he can comb through the raw data himself to help her prioritize what comes next without losing his train of thought. [Windvoice[/apprehension[?]]] he adds, the field of his mind tinged with interest.

Over too many things. But Metroplex needs to rest and concentrate on his own healing, not get mired in politics. Bad enough how Starscream tried to drag him into it yesterday. Her smile twists a little more, rueful, but she rests her forehead against the processor so he can't see it. "We're going to head down the root network today. Will you hold down the fort up here?" she asks, tapping a knuckle against a groove in the metal.

A cluster of thoughts blooms under her knuckle.

[sow the wind/                                                        reap the whirlwind]

[Caminus, please -]

[- my regrets -]

[its depth as the roots of the sea]

["- You think I don't know it's my own fault?!"]

[- come home[come home][come home]].

Windvoice stays quiet, letting the fragmented burst curl around her. A rhetorical answer for a rhetorical question. His wistfulness is contagious, and she was already in an odd mood to begin with.

Once she's sure her expression is normal again, she steps back. "Take care."

-

The lowest levels of Metroplex's city mode remain mostly uncharted. They've mapped the maintenance shafts and the major fuel lines in over 70% of his frame, but a Titan's internals are labyrinthine and can shift without warning as Metroplex recovers. He can guide them to power leaks and other problem areas with greater clarity, now, as his sensors come back online.

But no one's had time to truly explore the roots sector. Primarily because they're so new: the roots spread deeper with every passing cycle. Metroplex gives regular reports as the roots extend from his back and sink into the crust. They need to keep a closer eye on the right root, which has transformed out to the point that it verges on piercing the insulation layer between the artificial crust and the mantle.

Signs of past rust infections and scars stand out along the inner walls before Windvoice drops down after Ironhide. Down here, Metroplex's passages are dark but oddly polished, with the gleam of freshly tempered metal. He routed all of his internal resources to the restoration of these sectors the moment his frame hit the planet's surface, and all of the leaps and bounds in infrastructure development since then have been fueled by what Metroplex draws here.

Ironhide is as familiar with the roots sector as any of them – read: not very. Though he spent long months spark-searching in Metroplex's lower layers, the roots were too stunted on Cybertron to travel through. The pale blue light of their torches bleaches the deep red of his frame as she, Wheeljack, and Nautica join him at the bottom of the maintenance ladder; they all look sallow in the gloom. The dark shadows under Wheeljack's optics stand out starkly as he hops down the ladder and nods to Ironhide, his familiar scanner and datapad stacked under his arm.

"Come down here often?" Wheeljack asks her, with a weary tinge of humor in his field.

Windvoice hums. "Probably not often enough," she murmurs.

Nautica slides down last, her hands loose on the sides of the ladder. As they peer down the winding passageway, Windvoice reaches up and presses the side of the Creation Lathe.

Despite its age, Solus Prime's Lathe interfaces seamlessly with Windvoice's reinforced helm port. All cityspeakers are modified based on their compatibility with Caminus's central processor to be able to bear the brunt of directly connecting to a Titan's mind in an emergency.

With a flicker of a handshake, the Lathe bypasses all the chokepoints and safeguards on that connection. It learned her as quickly as it does everything around them; if it were a virus and not a software interface bordering on holy that enables her to activate the Lathe and use it to analyze her surroundings, it would frighten her. The six-sided visor slides over her field of vision as the Lathe unfurls like a curled fern on the side of her helm. The data from its sensors streams into her processor, magnifying her awareness.

But what makes the Lathe more than a scanner is what it does with that data. Windvoice isn't sure whether the device analyzes everything on the fly, calculating faster than most mechs can think to produce models, blueprints, diagrams – or if it contains a shard of Solus Prime's genius, drawing on the memory of her old work. With the Lathe to guide her and the Forge in her strong hands, Solus could create miracles. Impossibilities.

When Windvoice looked down at the old Cybertron, the Lathe informed her, in exquisite detail, just how dead the planet was. Even then, she barely scraped the surface of its potential – like a Titan's mind, the Lathe could easily overwhelm her and leave her vomiting sparks on the floor.

But it led her down to the core and then turned her gaze up, so she could see how to repair the world.

Which raises a very interesting question – did Solus realize Cybertron was dying?

Windvoice asked Repository to track down exact records documenting the decline – and eventual cessation – of hot spot pulses before the Nova Prime era. Their specialty is poetry and ancient literature, and they preserved it all through the Functionist censorship that otherwise obliterated several generations' worth of historical ballads. Unfortunately, the most detailed research papers to survive were Shockwave's, written well after Solus's death and the war between Primes.

Would the damage have been perceptible in Solus's era? By the time Unicron arrived last year, it was far too late – only by completely reforging the planet could it be saved. But if Solus hadn't died, perhaps she could have stopped the unknown process that led to Vector Sigma's slow fade and eventual death.

What would Cybertron look like now, if she had lived?

"Watch your step," Ironhide says, his voice gruffer than usual as they start out. "I don't remember this sector being this large, before."

"The roots were vestigial on Cybertron We couldn't even access them for maintenance." Windvoice runs a hand along the wall, feeling the rough grit of stretch marks under her fingertips. "It's part of why I began to wonder whether Cybertron _could_ be saved. Titans draw energy and resources from within the planet to nourish themselves and their residents, but Metroplex's root growth was as stunted as Caminus's. They can resort to alternate energy sources like processed fuel and solar, but it isn't enough. The deeper and more developed the root system, the healthier the Titan."

The Lathe illuminates the corridors as they descend into the warren, sketching out the details of Metroplex's roots with thin lines of light. The data readouts flood Windvoice's vision, made manageable by the fact that the Lathe focuses on what Windvoice directs it to. [Crimped fuel line – protracted metal deficiency – restoration at 65% -] the visor informs her when she glances back the way they came, outlining said fuel line in bright fuchsia through the walls.

She rests on hand on Nautica's shoulder to steady herself as she cautiously unfocuses her optics. The Lathe's focal point blooms outward, and Windvoice attempts to sift through the avalanche of data for anything on a quantum level.

Not enough. The Lathe continues to analyze Metroplex's vast frame, noting details of his convalescence and providing estimated recovery times for systems that Windvoice didn't even know existed.

 _Something resonating inside the planet,_ Windvoice sends through the connection. _It affects space on a quantum level._

The stream of data on the visor cuts off without warning. Windvoice blinks behind the suddenly clear visor. She can almost _feel_ the Lathe shunt unrelated processes to the side as it reorients on her goal. She doesn't know how to be more specific, though; consulting the Lathe is a long shot, when not even Wheeljack and Nautica know precisely what they're looking for.

A needle of pain shoots through her temple as the visor tries to focus and invert on itself. [Error – universal wave function discrepancy detected [0.97 Hz absolute] – unfamiliar natural resonant frequency present – stand by for analysis.]

"Anything?" Wheeljack asks. They've turned a curve, and the hall splits into a woven mess of passages that leads further down – none of them straight lines, some barely separate for more than a few feet before merging back into one.

Windvoice nods slowly. "The Lathe says something about a universal wave function discrepancy. Ring any bells?"

Wheeljack exchanges a grim look with Nautica. He spins a dial on the side of his scanner, and a set of blue and orange lights join the Lathe's as he adjusts the parameters. "Only worrying ones."

Nautica nods, her optics concerned behind her own visor as she holds up her multipurpose wrench. "If it's detecting a universal discrepancy, we need to talk to Brainstorm. Like, yesterday."

"Why do I feel like we won't like the answers you get?" Ironhide asks, dryly. He raises his torch higher so its narrow beam lights up the dust floating further down the root system.

"Because the Necroworld was teleported to another universe by a Galactic Council geobomb," Nautica says, matter-of-factly. As though this is a perfectly normal occurrence. Traveling on the _Lost Light does_ things to a mech; Windvoice is certain of it. "And when Brainstorm teleported us all back, using Killmaster's wand, that universe's Luna-2 came along for the ride. It was still inside the template when…you know…"

Wheeljack scrubs the heel of his palm over his maskplate. He looks thoroughly exhausted. "And the geobombs were based on Killmaster's designs, too."

"Things keep coming up Killmaster," Windvoice says with a sigh that Wheeljack echoes.

Ironhide grunts. "And he's the hardest of the old Warriors Elite to pin down. No one could predict where he'd show up during the war, and no cell could hold him for long. Drove Prowl absolutely nuts."

"I think I'll try asking nicely first. Worth a shot, anyway." Wheeljack says. "We know where he is now, at least."

"He was already interested in the moon," Nautica adds, her optics lighting up. "It _must_ come back to Luna-F – if we could only extract it still -"

While Nautica and Wheeljack put their heads together, Windvoice rubs the back of her neck. She draws her foot along the faint layer of dust on the floor, observing the clear prints left as the two scientists start to set up their equipment.

Odd, though. She frowns and stoops down, absently tracing the shape of a strangely elongated footprint. Not one of theirs.

Has someone else been down h-

"Hold up!" Ironhide calls, suddenly. He raises a closed hand, pointing his torch light down the hall with renewed alertness. Nautica twitches; Wheeljack glances up, belatedly. "'Think I hear something."

Windvoice snatches her hand back from the unfamiliar tracks. Ironhide sidesteps so he's between her and the deeper corridors; Wheeljack levers himself up against the far wall and starts to circle around.

Initially, Windvoice can't hear anything except the rhythm of their ventilation systems and Metroplex's internals. But Wheeljack tenses, the thin biolines of his wide audial sensors brightening, and Ironhide adjusts his stance. A moment later, Windvoice hears it – the sound of metal on metal, like someone is scuffling around deeper in the catacombs. Voices echo through the tangled hallways, which makes it difficult to tell where the sound originates, but they're coming closer. One is clearly louder than the other.

"- can't bury yourself down here like this -"

Nautica perks up first. "Oh!" she says in recognition, rising from her crouch.

Just around the curve, a loud squawk rings out as someone trips in surprise at the sound of Nautica's exclamation.

Two mechs come into view a second later. Both familiar, and yet neither of whom Windvoice expected to see down here, of all places. "Whirl. Cyclonus," she says, touching a hand to the back of Ironhide's arm to tell him to stand down.

Whirl's strident voice probably should've tipped her off sooner. He points an accusing claw at all of them, his narrowed optic squinting with suspicion. "What the hell are you people doing here?" he demands.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Ironhide asks, mildly.

"I asked you first!"

Cyclonus stands beside Whirl, silent. The gaunt hollows of his face are like pits, bracketed by the lines he's carved down his face, and there's a noticeable asymmetry in his optics' light. He barely seems to register their presence: his expression is one of dull, distant misery.

Wheeljack waves his scanner. "Just investigating some weird readings. You guys come down here often?"

Whirl snaps his claw together in agitation, turning his bristling frame toward Wheeljack. "What, is that a crime now?" he fires back. "Must have missed the giant, flashing neon sign saying that no one was allowed down here." A pointed pause. "Oh wait! There isn't one!"

Windvoice gently pushes out from behind Ironhide. Ironhide shakes his head, almost imperceptibly; Windvoice chooses to disregard it. "It's not a crime, no. Have either of you noticed anything strange down here?" she asks, politely. The chances are slim, but it might help defuse the situation.

"Better yet, what have you been doing?" Ironhide asks, angling himself so he's partly in front of her again. Honestly, he's as bad as Chromia – which Windvoice supposes is the point.

Whirl huffs, his cockpit puffed out as he folds his arms under it. He glances sideways at Cyclonus – it's more obvious since he has only one optic to look with – and receives no input. Finally, Whirl throws up his claws. "Brooding, alright! We're having a nice group brood session together! Completely platonic brooding! Okay?!" Then, not quite meeting Windvoice's eyes, he adds, "And aside from the sinking sensation where my buffer of crude, antisocial violence used to be - no. Haven't noticed anything."

Then he latches a claw around Cyclonus's wrist and physically drags him along as he stalks past the group, vibrating with tension. "C'mon. Let's go find a dramatic cliffside and mystically contemplate the fragging sea, or something."

Nautica hesitates and reaches out as Cyclonus is swept by, but retracts her hand with a crestfallen expression. Cyclonus doesn't seem to register that he's moving. As they disappear around the corner leading up to the surface, Windvoice thinks that Whirl shifts his claw from Cyclonus's wrist to his shoulder.

The silence that follows is awkwardly morose. "Let's head back," Windvoice says, once Wheeljack and Nautica finish fine-tuning their scanning equipment in a flurry of whispers. Ironhide turns, his torchlight skimming over the wall.

In the split second it lights the wall, Windvoice catches sight of a color that doesn't fit. She pauses mid-step, momentarily thrown. She knows Metroplex's colors – that wasn't rust or discoloration.

Then, before she can raise her own torch, the Lathe responds to her sudden concentration by etching that section of wall with lines – [#4080D7], with streaks of [#707070] scraped onto the wall by an impact.

And she recognizes both shades instantly, with an eerie sense of déjà vu, because she designed Starscream's current frame and color scheme with her own hands.

Starscream. First visits to Vigilem, and now –

Windvoice touches the wall with a frown. Ironhide lingers, glancing from her to the paint streaks as she closes her and carefully matches her knuckles up with the marks left by Starscream's fist.

"Something up?" Ironhide asks.

He can't leave without her, as long as he's her guard. Reluctantly, Windvoice lets her hand fall.

"Anything useful?" she asks Wheeljack, when they catch up to him.

He shakes his head. "Not yet. But these sensors should send more data our way if there's another resonance event. Fingers crossed that there isn't one, and it was just a one-time thing."

Even he doesn't sound like he believes that. Windvoice smiles, and it feels weak and fragile on her lips. "Yeah. Fingers crossed."

-

She can't help but remember the last time Starscream spent time lurking in the depths of Metroplex.

Dammit.

-

Ironhide reluctantly leaves her after they reach the surface; enough work has piled up on his own desk that he can't stay. He promises to send Silverbolt and Fireflight to serve as her new escort in a few days.

The separation of Superion three months prior nearly destroyed her alliance with Starscream. More tellingly, in some ways, it almost tore him and Wheeljack apart in a way Windvoice wasn't sure they'd survive.

For too long, Windvoice suspects, Starscream was able to objectify Superion in a way he couldn't Devastator or Bruticus. Superion was badly damaged, mentally and physically, and couldn't split into his component mecha for years, while the Constructicons and the Combaticons spent more time as individuals. He has similar difficulties with Titans, viewing them more as inconveniently mobile cities than as ancient mecha, sentient, with their own lives and motivations beneath the surface.

Starscream vehemently insisted that they needed the combiner unit intact; Wheeljack insisted with equal, uncharacteristic force that the Aerialbots never consented to their combination, and had been forcibly merged as Superion for too long already. When Wheeljack refused to stop the procedure to free the Aerialbots, Starscream stormed out, boiling with anger.

That had been a bad month.

When they disconnected Fireflight, he started sobbing with relief. Windvoice can't keep track of their recovery as well as she'd like, but she knows Silverbolt and Skydive refuse to be in the same room as each other, and that Air Raid buries himself in a bottle at Maccadam's more often than he should. Powerglide, a late addition to fill the hole where the deceased Slingshot used to be, is less traumatized and helps Starscream in some capacity now, but flinches when he sees any of the original Aerialbots.

If Ironhide thinks Silverbolt and Fireflight will do well as bodyguards, she doesn't doubt him. If it helps give them some sense of purpose and normalcy, after losing two years of their lives to Superion, she welcomes it.

Chromia's absence hurts as much as it ever does.

-

Transmutate beams at her.

Weakly, Windvoice smiles back.

On the other side of the door to Starscream's office, the sound of someone flinging a datapad at the wall can be heard quite clearly.

It's too early for this. It's almost ten in the morning, and it's _still_ too early for this.

"Is Starscream -" Another crash, accompanied by a snarl - "- in?"

Transmutate nods. "The boss is working some stuff out right now. He'll be free in just a sec," she says, sagely, as the _clunk_ of someone banging their head repeatedly against a desk comes through the door. After another awkward moment ticks by, Transmutate slips a hand into her subspace storage and offers Windvoice a stick covered in blue crystals. "Rock candy?"

Knowing what she knows about Transmutate, it would probably cause her to go very, _very_ fast. "No, thank you."

Vortex arrives to break the uncomfortable stand off a few minutes later, intent on the screen of a handheld video game right up until he slumps against the wall beside Transmutate. He blinks to attention and stares at Windvoice as he abruptly notices her existence. He fires off an awkward salute with an uncertain wobble in his hand. "Boss lady."

It's polite, for Vortex.

Another crash from the office.

Relieved of duty, Transmutate skips away. "Okay! I have some memos to run. Be right back!" She shoots a pair of non-literal finger guns at them as she skates off. Vortex grunts in acknowledgement, and then stands there awkwardly until the silence from Starscream's office stretches long enough for Windvoice to risk knocking.

She takes Starscream's loud groan of despair as a 'make yourself at home.' The door opens for her, at least. Vortex clears his vocalizer before the door shuts behind her, then raises the volume to cough significantly, loud enough to be heard through it.

Starscream's faceplanted on his desk. One arm is thrown out dramatically to the side, clutching the air. So he's probably fine. "A strange mech walked through my wall last night," Windvoice says, to get things started on the right note.

His hand twitches. "Joy," Starscream mumbles to his cluttered desk. "It's contagious."

To be honest, Windvoice is starting to wonder. "I don't suppose you're familiar with the Muses of the Core?" When Starscream emits another ululating groan of negation, she sighs, sits across from him, and makes herself comfortable. "For some reason, I'm not surprised."

She makes it about a quarter of the way through a very abbreviated (no matter what Starscream claims) overview of what she knows of the Muses. Which isn't much to begin with. The Muses are myths for reason. Starscream stops her by holding up his limp hand, his face squashed as he turns his head up to look at her. "I have only one question. Is this mech going to show up at the next Council session and try to depose you, joining the growing list of people whose sole purpose in life is to drive me to an early grave?"

There's a faint smudge on his forehead from banging it against the desk too many times. She tries not to stare at it too much. "Doubtful."

Sighing, Starscream pushes himself up onto his elbows and jots a note on the nearest datapad, radiating ennui. "We'll put that one down as a 'maybe, given our current track record.'" He rolls a shoulder, and the resulting _crack_ makes Windvoice jump. "The Mistress submitted the full text of her motion overnight. You resign, Optimus steps up, and the Mistress of Flame graciously won't demand you be tried on Caminus. Just judged by the Council. Not that that would stop her from maneuvering to have you delivered into her custody – she already tried that once with Chromia, and somehow I doubt Optimus will be inclined to find a third option if she corners him. Conveniently, she leaves out any clause concerning the Eukarians, so if Elita feels like pushing they'll be next on the chopping block." He pauses, then cracks his equally crimped wrist. "And myself, naturally," he adds.

Which is probably his main concern. He omitted Vigilem – a compromise. Windvoice is well aware she's screened both of them from the consequences of their actions, intentionally or not. "She won't let me go that easily. My crimes are too grave."

Starscream shakes his head, with a faint smirk. It's sharply at odds with the dark exhaustion inked under his eyes – he looks so much worse than he did yesterday. "The only crime she can prove is that you violated the terms of your banishment from Caminus. They didn't have any cameras on that space bridge, and the Mistress herself said the witnesses were 'confused' and therefore unreliable sources. There's not a shred of physical evidence linking you to the Forge's disappearance," he says, brandishing a datapad with a flourish.

Windvoice takes it.

…The fact that Starscream already has an entire file on what her legal strategy should be if she's brought to trial says something about him. Most of it involves a combination of denial, technicalities, and flat out lying. Windvoice scans through it in fascinated horror, sitting up a little straighter with each bullet point. Starscream presses his hands together under his chin, his exhausted smirk deepening as she resets her optics, appalled.

"Evidence matters less than you think," is all she has to add. For the rest, there's just no words. Starscream regards the law as an inconvenience, at best. If this were a civil suit on Caminus, or any criminal case that didn't involve a holy relic – maybe.

He grimaces. "Ugh. Let me guess. 'Solus's magic 8 ball says that she's guilty.' Pfah. Ridiculous."

Starscream's skepticism is not as polite as Optimus's.

And yet he's not wrong. Windvoice dearly hopes it will never come to that. Her faith has taken enough of a beating as it is from the Mistress of Flame's campaign against her; the thought of returning to Caminus to face the Ignis Court and hear the Mistress deny Caminus's role in what happened would shatter her. "Why were you down in Metroplex's roots?" she asks, setting the datapad to one side.

His hand closes reflexively into a fist. Windvoice eyes the tops of Starscream's knuckles; now that she knows what to look for, she can see the scraped paint and flecks of bare metal underneath. How hard did he hit that wall? "Spying on me, now? It's about time. I wish I could take credit for you finally paying attention to what's right under your nose," Starscream says, scathingly, as he leans away from his desk.

At least he's not denying it. "I'm not spying on you. The paint scraped off your knuckles -"

A twitch, and Starscream glances down at his own hand like he's never seen it before. A look of purest vexation screws up his face as he presses said knuckles against his dimmed eyes. "Hrrgnlh. Of course."

She presses her hands flat on the desk. "Just. Tell me honestly. Am I going to find another secret mining operation in Metroplex's lower filtration system?" She'd like to think Metroplex is recovered enough that they'd pinpoint a drain like that right away, but that depends on what measures Starscream could've taken to conceal his presence.

Without warning, Starscream shoves himself up out of his chair and stalks around. "I could probably find more Ore-7 in some random human's left kidney than I would in this giant lug. Do I _look_ like I'd make the same mistake twice?!"

 _Yes._ "No. You look like you're tired, and like you spent half the night worrying instead of sleeping," Windvoice says, dredging up what patience she still has as she stands up. He looks worse than that, in truth – he looks like death warmed over. His paint hasn't taken on a tinge of grey yet, but the color is sallow, and the faint tremor in his hands grows more obvious as he grows agitated. He probably didn't sleep at all after receiving the Mistress of Flame's proposal, and their talk yesterday doesn't seem to have helped.

He's hiding something. She's certain of it. But…something that scares him, even more than Optimus's visit. First Vigilem, and now trips down into the depths of Metroplex without any explanation? As if they didn't have enough to deal with on top of the readymade Council crisis playing out around them.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of working with Starscream on a regular basis is her own awareness of what he used to be just a year ago. A year is nothing, compared to the scales they live on. Their respective situations have altered so drastically in such a brief period that it boggles. She wants to trust that he wouldn't regress and fall back on old habits – but these habits aren't so old.

She doesn't think that he's lying about the ore, at least. What, then?

"Sleep is for the weak," Starscream says, bitterly. Then his optics dart to the wall to his right and linger there. As though he expects to see something there other than plain metal. It's the sort of fleeting glance Windvoice didn't pay attention to, back on Cybertron -

It sends a cold spike of genuine, unvarnished alarm through her. If Starscream's seeing something – or if he's so stressed that it's thrust him back into the same headspace he was in a year ago –

Managing his destructive tendencies won't be enough.

"Starscream," she repeats, emphatically. Starscream's optics shoot back to her. There's an odd, wary note to his EM field that troubles her as she takes a cautious step toward him. "If something's wrong, let me help," she tries again, her tone low, mollifying.

His wings bristle, as though her open hands and body language give the opposite impression. "It's none of your concern," he snaps. His gaze darts away again, too on edge to focus on her.

"It is my concern when one of my seconds is in distress," Windvoice says. Gentle concern rarely makes an impact on Starscream, so she goes with harsh concern. "You…If something is wrong, I'm not going to shut you out of the decision-making process, if that's what you're worried about -"

"I'd like to see you try!" he retorts, whipping around to face her. His frame language is a hot mess: his body twisted away from her, all his blue and red armor clamped down, his wider wings flared to intimidate her - or to flee -

It jolts her.

This is more than agitation.

She's never seen Starscream afraid of her, before.

A twist of something tight and confused coils in her tanks. She jolts back and knocks into the desk again.

Calm. With excruciating effort, Windvoice coaxes her suspicions and questions and concerns back in line. "Tone the megalomania back. Just a touch. At least pretend you obey the rule of law and listen to me for five seconds," she says, wryly. Her lopsided smile trembles a little with the force it takes to keep it there, but a few steady ventilation cycles, and it feels almost real.

Any more pressure in the atmosphere, and both of them might crack. She's not going to push Starscream into his failure mode if she can help it.

"If something's wrong, let me or Wheeljack help. We were already down there, anyway. I promise, no one will hurt you for being honest," she adds, aiming for light-hearted. She thinks she almost succeeds. Relaxing her own tense frame leaves a sore knot in the cords of one shoulder, but it's worth it.

Against all odds, it helps. Starscream's mouth screws up in a sardonic pout, but his obvious agitation lessens as he folds his arms. "Honest? Don't make me gag," he says, scornfully.

Better. Windvoice still feels like she's been punched in the gut by his fear, but better.

She shakes her head with a short laugh and leaves the desk, advertising her movements with exaggerated signals. Starscream squints at her as she walks to the decorative, hand-ground bottles of energon and engex arranged along the wall. She pours two cubes of straight engex and drinks out of both before holding one out for him. "Drink?" she says. If he's not sleeping, odds are he's not fueling, either. Engex is better than nothing.

Starscream arches a brow, unimpressed. " _This_ is your master plan. Get me to spill all my secrets by overcharging while on the clock?"

"If you think you can't keep up with me."

With that, Windvoice tips her helm back and drinks. Not that getting buzzed before noon is her idea of an enjoyable time, but apparently that's just what kind of week it's going to be.

And it provokes Starscream quite neatly. "Your ruse is transparent and I'm doing this because I want to, not because you want me to." He sniffs, plucks the engex out of her hand, and glares at it like the cube personally offended him. "I don't need your pity. I know how much of a wretch I am."

There's a vicious, caustic note in his voice she's never heard before.

"I've never pitied you," Windvoice says, quietly. She watches in the oddly tense silence that follows, as Starscream reluctantly sips at the engex. Then, more quietly still - "Should I call Wheeljack? Or should I call Bumblebee?"

Wheeljack is his amica, loathe as Starscream is to reveal it to the public.

Bumblebee is a living reality check, and he knows what it means that she's suggesting it.

"No," he says, glaring. "As if I need to deal with that again." But, tellingly, there's no real heat behind it. He slugs back the rest of the engex in one go, his armor clamped defensively close once more. Then he spins the empty cube over the surface of the desk with a careless flick of his wrist and shoves the conversation onto a different track.

The avalanche of words is Starscream's unsubtle hint that he's not discussing it any further. Windvoice accepts it, and moves on. These are the hazards, she's found, of building a working relationship with someone with the kind of baggage Starscream has. One day, she'd like to be able to have a proper argument with him without the risk of one or both of them breaking.

She sets her empty cube beside Starscream's with a click in a tiny gesture of solidarity. He eyes it and says nothing.

-

Another ping finds her at noon, when she takes a break to collect her thoughts. The Council has made it excruciatingly clear they don't intend to meet today – everyone she's on speaking terms with has requested time to consult with their homeworlds before proceeding any further. She nods to the few shopkeepers doing business in the shade in one of Metroplex's eastern plazas, walking rather than flying for once. It's quieter here than it used to be: the population shifted significantly once Metroplex's infrastructure extended to support Censere. Many mechs prefer the security of homes and shops that won't uproot themselves and fly off at any given moment. Metroplex isn't deserted, but people prefer to live on the western edge now.

Which means that when the familiar grey and red mech rises from a seat outside a cafe, he stands out. Irida, the Camien who owns the cafe, has supplied him with an electric blue shake and a curly straw, which he abandons to approach Windvoice.

She pauses to let him reach her. "Obsidian."

Obsidian sustained almost mortal injuries trying to prevent Liege Maximo from delivering a new processor to Vigilem's central chamber. Though he received the surgery needed to reattach his almost severed lower body and spinal column, Elita-1 rousted him from the hospital mere days later to confront Starscream. He still bears the thick scar of a massive weld job and replacement armor plating in a ring around his waist, just below his spark.

"Speaker Windvoice," he says, inclining his head and pressing a hand to his chest in a shallow bow. He moves with the stiffness of someone who never received physical therapy to complete his recovery. Knowing what the Carcerians do with their dead - sacrificing their bodies to repair Carcer at all costs - maybe it's not surprising. "I come on behalf of my First."

Not the best way to brighten her morning. The only Carcerians who visit Metroplex are those Elita sends - usually choleric, shunning contact with the Neo-Cybertronian government. Out of all Elita's people, though, she trusts Obsidian to be the most practical.

He offers her a spindly arm with meticulous courtesy; she accepts, but walks him right back to his chair. "Here, let's sit," Windvoice says. The scrape of the chair over the metal sends Irida's head and hydrodynamic wings perking up behind the cafe counter, but Windvoice waves her off with an apologetic smile. "Are your repairs holding up okay?" she asks, as Obsidian gingerly eases himself back down.

Obsidian shakes his head, reflective rather than negative. "It is strange, yet. On Carcer, those who receive mortal wounds usually choose an honorable end. Cybertronian medics are far more experienced with dragging one back from the brink of death." Then he sighs, picks up the bright blue shake, and takes a deep sip. "But I cannot linger. I come only to deliver an invitation," he says. "Elita-1 entreats you to meet with her on neutral ground, to discuss several pressing issues."

After the meeting yesterday? Pressing is probably an understatement. She's still procrastinating on Optimus's message, but it can't wait forever. "How neutral?" Windvoice asks.

He tips his head up toward the sky. "Luna-1. We understand that the few mecha who live there are Cybertronian, but are unaffiliated with you. If you come alone, Elita shall as well."

That means precisely scrap all - Elita outmatches Windvoice on the battlefield in every way. The tiny Starscream voice in her head starts bleating about an assassination attempt, perfectly in sync with the tiny Chromia voice that she trusts far more. Ironhide would probably have words for her, too.

Her last attempt at talking things out with another leader on equal footing had mixed results. But if she and Elita can finally speak, maybe they can lay the groundwork for civil discussion in the future.

She's been meaning to visit Luna-1, anyway. If Starscream doesn't like it, he can lump it.

"When, and what coordinates?" Windvoice asks.

\---

_Making my way downtown, walking fast_

_Faces pass, and I'm home bound_

_[intense piano solo]_

\- [unknown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwkej79U3ek)

\---

Flatline runs the Censere clinic with an iron fist, a heavily weaponized plasma cutter, and reputation for discretion and vaguely reliable competence. He treats the Decepticons, ex- and other variations thereof, who distrust the main hospital in Metroplex and its Autobot-leaning staff. Windvoice runs a good PR line about how medical treatment is available, free and without bias against any mech - but she still spent the better part of her tenure on Cybertron blundering about with an Autobot symbol on her chest. It made an impression.

The city adjacent to Metroplex started as a cluster of Decepticons squatting outside the Titan's reach, just as they did on old Cybertron: a core group too paranoid to risk living under the influence of an Autobot Titan, and the disaffected neutrals and 'cons who joined them in the slums. Credit where credit is due – Windvoice willingly poured in the time and effort needed to keep it from devolving into another dead end.

With help, naturally. Flatline grumbles when Starscream walks in like he owns the place, but whenever Flatline lobbies for more supplies and better medical equipment, it's Starscream who applies the nudges and favors needed to grease the gears.

It helps, he supposes, that Ratchet makes rounds through the clinics as well as the hospital. He might not _officially_ hold the Chief Medical Officer title anymore, but his opinions send the bureaucrats scurrying. Between Starscream's little nudges and Ratchet's irritable, loudly-voiced insistence on not treating people with shoddy equipment and substandard decontamination systems, the Censere clinics keep roughly apace with Metroplex's.

So. It's not favoritism to help them out. Just good business. When Starscream requests a full systems strip and scan, Flatline shoots him one incredulous stare – and then jerks his head toward the backroom, alerts one of the on-call medics, and preps him for an entirely unnecessary surgery.

Privately, in a sedated haze, Starscream can admit that maybe – _maybe_ – he nuked a substantial chunk of his connections during his term as leader of Cybertron. Quite thoroughly. By the time he came to his senses and abdicated, he'd antagonized literally everyone it was possible to antagonize (and then some). He did things so heinously, pointlessly, unforgivably _stupid_ that he cringes whenever he forces himself to recall them. What he'd considered ruthless, perfectly logical moves to consolidate and secure his power – from the creation of the Badgeless to the unfathomable stupidity of inviting Airachnid to Cybertron – were, in hindsight, completely inept. It was killing Metalhawk, writ large: he seized every opportunity put in front of him in a rash, shortsighted fervor, and was left with nothing in his hands except mistake piled on mistake, one bad decision made to cover for more, and regret.

That's just what happens when he gets what he wants. He should have known better.

And now he's right back where he started: lurking in the shadow of a charismatic leader, and waiting for the other pede to drop. It's not intolerable, he supposes – Windvoice listens to him. Her political instincts still leave a lot to be desired, but she's not _awful_.

For now. Megatron set the bar so low she'd have to dig her way down to the center of the planet to try to crawl under it.

"I don't know what you want me to tell you. Whoever put this frame together did it just fine. Everything's in perfect working order. Nothing extra, nothing weird," Flatline says, rolling red optics as he reattaches Starscream's femoral armor with an audible _shnk_. "Still got those weld scars in your spark chamber, but that's on record already."

Yes, yes. The note's right at the top in bold, under [vitreous-positive] and [abnormal luminosity] – the last one leftover from his original factory documentation. They do that, after one's dear leader shoves his fusion cannon through one's chest and fires, and one foolishly decides to survive.

He almost wishes Flatline found something. Then he could've blamed the whole thing on Wheeljack finally betraying him, and called it a day.

Instead, he's left with nothing but equally unpleasant speculation. "Whatever," Starscream mutters, his temper foul as he shrugs off Flatline's hands and stalks out into the hall. He unplugs a detached wire still dangling from his medical port and tosses it over his shoulder, sparking a cross mutter in his wake. When he passes a mirror set in the wall, he glimpses himself: shoulders hunched, armor flared, clearly agitated.

And for the briefest of moments, someone looms over his shoulder.

By the time he flinches and surges forward, putting space between himself and the mirror, the figure's gone. None of his proximity sensors picked up anything physical. Only his optics.

Flatline's a passable frame surgeon, and nothing more. If nothing abnormal shows up on a full physical scan, it can only mean the problem's in his processor.

Or worse. He's haunted.

Again.

-

He doesn't answer Wheeljack's third comm of the day. Windvoice bullied him into it, Starscream can tell.

He most _definitely_ doesn't call Bumblebee. Starscream knows Bumblebee is alive and well and no longer astrally projecting himself from a black hole for the express purpose (no matter what he claims) of making Starscream's life terrible. He doesn't need the reminder, or a 'reality check,' or anything of the kind. He _knows_.

Instead, he goes down. It's almost a perverse fascination, now – like prodding at a damaged denta with one's tongue, until the neurocircuit throbs and energon starts leaking again. He trailed the figure down here before, puffed up with smug satisfaction at having caught one of Optimus's mechs in the act of sneaking around. The act of what? Who cared? Probably sabotage, anyway. Why else would Optimus have the gall to bring someone like _Jazz_ here? He'd intended to bring the news back to Windvoice with an almost pathetic zeal, like Ravage strutting up to Soundwave after one of his hunts.

Then he'd realized who he was following.

(And he remembers quite vividly, now, that Ravage is dead.)

He finds the paint streak Windvoice noticed almost at once and curses his past self for tearing off in a blind panic. Sloppy. His aren't the only prints tracked down here in Metroplex's dust, now.

She already knows too much. He can't afford to expose any more weaknesses at a time like this.

The figure flickers in the corner of his vision. More solid, this time. That too-familiar armor looks more substantial. Starscream shudders. His tanks burn – a mix of sour sparks from purging his tank this morning, and a fresh wave of nausea curdling what energon remains.

Which is more likely, he wonders – that there's another mech out there that only Starscream can hear or see, trapped in some other physics-breaking hell dimension or reaching across the gap between universes just to annoy him?

Or that he's finally lost his mind?

He sags against the wall in resignation, and, with a sullen glower, turns to face the horrible, familiar grey figure who stares at him like he's a stranger.

\---

Jazz crosses one ankle over the other as he leans against the wall. He keeps _Zombie_ running on loop on one internal speaker, and quietly tunes the rest of his sensors on Starscream, down the curving corridor.

He wants to be anywhere but here, like this. He wants to be up in the sunlight, cruising along the fresh paved roads outside the city with Earth music blasting, or tentatively picking at some of his own. Nothing like some downtime at Blurr's place to get the creative juices flowing again for the first time in – years. Frag. He's been strung too tight to try to play anything ever since Optimus asked him to go back to Earth.

He didn't realize how tense he's been until Optimus left them outside Censere, and he finally got the chance to _breathe_.

And now a migraine chokes his music files with static, as Starscream starts yelling at the flickering but unmistakable transmission of Megatron.

Jazz lets his helm fall back, and stares at the blurred ceiling without seeing it as his head throbs and his visor fritzes in the gloom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sources:  
> [Sappho 31](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho_31)  
> [Swinburne's Hymn to Proserpine](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45292/hymn-to-proserpine-after-the-proclamation-in-rome-of-the-christian-faith)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I find the Combiner Wars arc to be one of the biggest clusterfucks of characterization in the exRID run. It's a transparent excuse for More Toys and giant robot rampages, and, like a lot of things involving the Enigma of Combination, seems to actively make characters dumber. I'm erasing the Enigma's existence as much as possible; combiners are generally the result of a malignant phenomenon that forces mechs together and steamrolls their free will and individual self in a way that is incredibly traumatizing to them, particularly those produced by Megatron without their consent. As far as this fic is concerned, the initial rampage with Menasor and Superion was all that ever happened. Enough to destroy a significant portion of Caminus's main city, but no repeat attempts or additional stupidity.

\---

_Moons. Vintage moons._

\- Lord Krok, General of Destruction of the Glorious Decepticon Empire, long may he reign[many citations needed]

\---

Red Alert pings her as her shuttle starts its descent. He enforces strict, almost paranoid protocols for anyone who enters Luna-1's airspace, and the leader of Neo-Cybertron is no exception. Out of respect for both Prowl and Elita-1, Windvoice agreed to coordinates in a different hemisphere from the Luna-1 crew's base of operations.

While Red Alert and Fortress Maximus maintain a professional line of communication with Neo-Cybertron, Prowl prefers no contact. Windvoice's impression of his history is a confused one - reportedly, Prowl was attacked by a mnemosurgeon, forcibly controlled by another mind control device, and mentally overwhelmed by a forced combination into Devastator in rapid succession. His ruthlessness as the Autobot tactical commander throughout the war stands in sharp contrast to his erratic behavior afterward. At some point, Optimus threw him out a window and threatened to kill him without due process. His continued sabbatical on Luna-1 is as much for Neo-Cybertron's safety as it is for his own mental health, as he struggles with a lack of trust in his own mind and judgement.

Having Luna-1 spontaneously slingshot halfway around the galactic arm to return to Neo-Cybertron didn't help matters.

Speaking of. She doesn't have time today to try to speak with Luna-1, but she sets her shuttle to scan the surface for any signs of an entrance to the core. If all else fails, she'll try to contact the moon via Metroplex. Vigilem has expressed unrelenting disinterest in the attempt.

She lands on a hollow field in the southern reaches of the moon. After she disembarks, Windvoice kneels to draw a finger through the thin grey dust of dried _sentio metallico_ that fills the pockmarks where sparks used to be. Rodimus described a similar field closer to the Luna-1 base where the sparks lived on, dormant but flaring when he set foot on the ground with half the Matrix in his chest. This field was forged and harvested many millions of years ago, Windvoice estimates. Luna-1 left Cybertron without warning, lost and wandering - but it did not leave uninhabited. Like a colony Titan, Luna-1 left with hot spots, ready to give form to new life.

Someone was here. And then they were gone, leaving only the rusted, empty frames of dead Titans and darkened hot spots in their wake.

A pink burst of energy shoots over her hand in a blur of searing heat. It leaves a scorch mark along the metal ground. Windvoice snatches her hand back, her sensors belatedly picking up the nasal whine of an energy weapon charging up for another round.

 _Shut up, please,_ she thinks in Starscream's general direction, as she dives to the side and rolls behind the shuttle for cover. The next volley of energy blasts spray across the ground and the side of the shuttle's ramp, punching holes through the metal.

Elita's weaponry can carve through a Titan's processor like it's nothing. Neither Windvoice nor the shuttle particularly stand a chance, even if she climbs back inside.

 _Fight_ , a voice whispers in her spark - a part of her that knows more than self-defense and fancy twirls, if she gives it free rein.

(Fighting was Vigilem's art.)

Evasive maneuvers it is, then. Windvoice grunts as she rolls and transforms, taking wing and cutting sharply around the back of the shuttle to give herself more cover as she takes to the air. The higher her elevation, the better her advantage.

More shots follow her as she rises, and Elita veers around the shuttle in her alt mode - a compact all-terrain vehicle the color of spilled energon, with her main cannon mounted to the side. The cratered surface of the spark field doesn't slow her; she eats up ground with dogged persistence, her wheels finding purchase as she hurtles toward Windvoice. One wheel clips a deep pockmark and Elita goes airborne for a moment. She continues to fire, compensating for the bounce with ease.

"Elita!" Windvoice yells, aloud and over comms. No response. Then she hastily focuses on darting, weaving through the air as more energy bursts fill her sensors with a haze of heat and light.

Only Elita, though. No sign of any other Carcerians vaulting over the lunar landscape to join the chase. If she stays ahead of Elita's barrage, she can make it to the Luna-1 base easily.

Another energy pulse sears over the surface of her right wing. Windvoice flinches and pulls into a tight roll as self-repair assesses the burn. Probably not much more than paint nanites and the outer armor took damage, but wings are sensor-heavy, and it feels like her plating is on fire. Four more pulses come after her and she spirals around in a tight helix to throw off Elita's aim.

Except -

Except Elita's aim is perfectly fine. Windvoice was sitting out beside the shuttle like a willing target, with no cover whatsoever.

Solus's slagheap, she's missing on purpose.

Alarm gives way to indignation. Windvoice whips around and dives, turning in an aileron roll as she drops until the last second, when she brakes hard and transforms to hit the ground in an irritable landing. It kicks up a small cloud of dust that she storms out of with her ventilation system off to prevent inhaling. Her chest burns with anger when she plants herself in front of Elita's hurtling path and waits, folding her arms.

Elita stops firing at once. Almost mildly, she drives the rest of the way up the slope. She transforms in a harsh, fluid motion, without a word of apology or explanation. When she stops, she stands level with Windvoice - which means she towers over her by a solid meter, her expression coldly assessing.

"Elita. You shot at me," Windvoice says.

"A test. Of many things," Elita says, unfazed. She folds her arms over her chest in a mirror and walks in a slow circle, her evaluating gaze fixed on Windvoice.

Windvoice refuses to turn and goggle at her. Elita knows exactly what she did and is doing; she wouldn't fire on another Council leader without some reason to think she'd get away with it. If Windvoice even chooses to kick up a fuss about it. "Like what?" she asks, sensors prickling as Elita stalks around behind her back. The damage assessment from her wing finishes, and she shoves it to the back of her processor to deal with later.

Elita finishes her circle without shooting Windvoice in the back - small favors. Windvoice meets her eyes again once she's level with Windvoice once more, and no sooner.

Finally, Elita's mouth tugs in an unreadable expression. Whatever she expected to get from the staring contest, Windvoice doesn't think she got it. "Did you know that Vigilem actively monitors your movements?" Elita asks. "He adjusted his angle to track your passage into Luna-1's atmosphere; he initiated secondary engines when you took evasive action, just now."

No, actually. She didn't know that. Windvoice clamps down, trying not to let the surge of disquiet show on her face. "Why are we here, Elita? What do you want?"

If this whole meeting was arranged just to test Vigilem's response times - Windvoice doesn't know what to make of that.

Elita's entire demeanor shifts. She squares her feet and shoulders, facing Windvoice head on with a sharp, searching stare. Windvoice angles her wings up and open in response, despite the twinge of pain from the scorched sensors.

"The truth," Elita says, at last. Then - "And perhaps my honor back. Obsidian has certainly plagued me enough. Will you answer my questions?"

The odd, wry note of humor in Elita's voice startles Windvoice maybe more than that first shot across her hand. It throws her off and she resets her optics in a blink. "If you answer mine," she fires back, aware that she's frowning but unable to control it.

"Very well. What is your relationship with Liege Maximo?"

Ah. And there's the old headache. "I have none," Windvoice says. She badly wants to rub her forehead in exasperation. This is one of Elita's sticking points - she's half-convinced that Windvoice and Starscream worked to free Liege Maximo and Vigilem deliberately. Starscream thinks its all a PR ploy on Elita's part; Windvoice isn't so sure.

Well. She's a quarter right. Windvoice went in intending to free Vigilem the second time, to prevent a far greater catastrophe if Liege Maximo released him first. But none of them wanted Liege loose upon the world.

"They killed your Prime," Elita says. Her stare is relentless, just this side of condescending, like she's trying to scrape something out of Windvoice and scrutinize it under a microscope. Or like there's something she just doesn't understand. "It was Megatronus's hand that did it, but Liege Maximo urged him on. Liege Maximo fanned the flames of the war that followed into complete chaos. With Vigilem his most loyal follower, silent as Caminus mourned. We swore to remember, always."

As if Windvoice could forget. She takes a shuddering vent. _No._ "That's -" She breaks off as something else strikes her. "You called him Vigilem."

Elita grimaces. "You stipulated the use of his true name as one of your conditions for an open dialog," she says, stiffly.

That…that was over a year ago, if Windvoice is thinking of the same conversation. Normally a year wouldn't be that long, but a lot has happened since then. Starscream had escorted Obsidian to request her help with controlling Vigilem's processor-less frame, and she had denied their request, Vigilem a fever of indignation in her spark. It's harder to disentangle one's emotions from one's passenger when you're both irritated.

Then Elita breaks eye contact, her grimace firmly in place as she stares out over the pocked landscape. "Moreover, I have - reflected on what you call our hypocrisies. Concealing the truth of Liege Maximo's incarceration. Misleading you and the rest of the Council incidentally, by stripping their names and giving Vigilem a false one." She closes her hand into a fist and stares at it, hard. "We cast off the name Vigilant out of shame at the disgrace brought by our association with our Titan, and called him Carcer so he would never forget it. His name a prison, his body a prison, for us as well as him and his Liege. _That_ was our penance."

She takes a step forward, examining Windvoice's face once more. Windvoice refuses to back up. She knows what Elita's looking for, now - the truth, or, barring that, a weakness. "Tell me truly," Elita says, her voice pitched softly. "If we had told you the truth of Carcer before the Titans swarmed the planet, would you still have defied me and invaded our Titan, and risked freeing Liege Maximo?"

 _Not yours_. _Never was._ The reflexive denial stings Windvoice's lips. But they're not her words, and she won't speak them.

Instead, she tells Elita the truth. "I don't know," she says, steadily. Elita's stare redoubles, burning with judgement. "I would have _asked._ Accepted whatever safeguards you thought necessary to make the process as safe and secure and expedient as possible. Even if that meant a gun to the back of my head." Her spark spins with quiet, determined certainty. Chromia would never have permitted it – but by then, Chromia was already in prison. "But I would not have let Metroplex fight and die alone. And all we can do now is live with the choices we _have_ made."

"And the outcome might well have been the same." Elita's gaze drops to the side, and she shakes her head for a moment with her optics dimmed. Resigned. When she raises her gaze again, it's with a note of rueful, cool respect. "I appreciate your honesty," she says, with a cadence that says it's a formal declaration. "One final question."

Windvoice presses the knuckles of her fist to her chest, absently. The conversation's gone better than she hoped already. But something feels - off. Before she'd been distracted by the use of Vigilem's name, something… "Ask."

"Will you ever return Vigilem to our custody?" When Windvoice's head shoots up, Elita stares her down. "If we faced him now, he would overpower and outmaneuver our forces. We no longer have cityspeakers of the skill necessary to cage him in his own mind. They perished before I was forged - victims of Vigilem's ancient spite."

So she's asking Windvoice. That's what implied, here. And most likely, if that fails, she's requested cityspeakers from the Mistress of Flame. It would explain a great deal about the unpredictable nature of the Carcerians decision to back Optimus's bid for annexation, if that was the Mistress's condition.

But Windvoice has an advantage some random cityspeaker from Cordis or Coronae won't.

Vigilem would let her in the front door, willingly.

Windvoice wants to vomit.

"No," she says, hearing herself from a great distance away. "I won't be responsible for killing or enslaving the mind of a Titan." The blood of Chela and the undead Titans that invaded Cybertron - [desperate,] [from a long way off,] [empty so empty] \- weighs on her conscience enough as it stands.

Rather than disappointed, Elita looks as though she anticipated this answer; she nods. Before she can speak, however, Windvoice asks something that's been plaguing her for a long time. "How long were they supposed to be imprisoned?" At Elita's perplexed frown, she elaborates. "Liege Maximo, and Vigilem. What was their sentence? A million years? A billion? A lifetime? How long were they to be punished?" She doesn't know why she wants that quantified – plain curiosity, maybe.

Elita resets her optics twice, so rapidly Windvoice almost misses it. She looks confused. "It is our duty," she says, slowly. "There was no limit on their sentence."

Windvoice's fists curl tighter; she dismisses the pinprick of pain from her palms just as she does the scorched sensors. Her chest feels so tight. "There was never going to be an end?" she presses, relentless. When she takes a step forward, Elita takes one back, with a flicker of alarm in her field. "What if they sincerely repented? Or wished to atone or be rehabilitated? We can live _billions_ of years - Titans longer still! When would they have been punished enough?"

Did none of them ever consider the horror of chaining Vigilem in his own mind as a punishment? Imprisoning him in an actual cage might have been one thing. Piloting him around like a puppet, while his consciousness circled around the drain of madness for millions of years? A few _months_ was enough to break Prowl in a way the war never did.

Sometimes, it takes Windvoice's breath away to see how badly they've been broken - how deep the wounds go. Compassion is a thing sorely missing on Cybertron. She doesn't know how far her own goes. If she even has enough for this. If she lets herself falter - if she lets herself think about who she's defending, here - it'll fall apart.

"They lie," Elita says, stunned, slow. Like she's not sure they're speaking the same language. "If they repented, they are only lying -"

"No one can win that game," Windvoice says, flatly. Because it's true. "A life sentence! Eternal imprisonment and enslavement, for something they didn't even -"

 _[- do] _ punches out of her spark and through her chest like a bullet.

She staggers as the shock spreads inside her in a frigid wave. She's the one blinking, now, her processor frantically spinning as she tries to parse where _exactly_ that thought came from.

But she knows where it came from. Vigilem lived in her spark. Even when she was suspicious and scared, unable to trust herself to the point that she distanced herself from anyone and anything she might hurt if Vigilem overwhelmed her, they grew to know each other's innermost self. When she uploaded him back into his new processor, the echoes remained. She can tell them apart from her own impulses quite easily. Knowledge of how to fight someone to a bloody standstill. A familiarity with Vigilem's moods and humors, as though she's had millennia to understand him. The ability to comprehend and translate any Titan's vast thoughts with stunning speed.

So why - _why why why_ –

\- is the echo of Vigilem so sure that they didn't do it?

 _They killed your Prime_ , Elita said.

And something inside her just said **_no_**.

She needs to see Vigilem. Yesterday, if possible. _Right slagging now_ , if that fails.

She shakes off the blind shock and comes back to herself with her fingers digging into her temples like she's about to tear out the circuitry. The dormant Creation Lathe seems to pulse in its socket in time with her pounding headache. There's nothing here for it to analyze, but Windvoice can feel the buzz of drivers taking up space in her processor as though it is.

Elita watches her from a careful distance away, wary. Windvoice staggering seems to have thrown her off balance: a targeting HUD covers one of her optics, but she's glancing at the horizon and the sky, tense, like she expects to see something else coming at them.

"Sorry," Windvoice rasps. Her vocalizer tastes like she almost glitched it into burn out. If the shock rattled her system that badly, she might need a medic after this. "I don't know where that came from. Will you answer some questions of mine, please?"

If nothing else, she needs someone else's perspective. Windvoice knows Caminus's history as well as any cityspeaker does - but she also knows that Camiens view Primes through rose-colored optics. If Repository is one to talk, that kind of cultural bias can conceal a great deal in plain sight. History is rarely written by a truly neutral party.

Elita stares, her expression too deeply concerned to be a true frown. "Ask."

Basic assumptions. Start there. Windvoice cycles a vent. "How do we know Liege Maximo persuaded Megatronus to kill Solus Prime?"

To her credit, Elita doesn't immediately launch into a tirade. She stares at Windvoice like she's an idiot, yes, but that's to be expected. "Surely Caminus of all Titans would have historical records of this," Elita says, incredulous. When Windvoice waves her on, Elita rolls her optics. "Fine. An indulgence. Liege Maximo and Solus Prime lived in their twined cities, in close proximity and friendly with each other. But Liege Maximo formed a pact with Megatronus. Though Megatronus supposedly courted Solus Prime as aemula, one day he became enraged and murdered her in the heart of Caminus. Before and after, he spoke with Liege Maximo. When word of the murder began to spread, Megatronus left, incensed once more, to challenge Prima and begin the war that Liege Maximo fueled. My own Vigilant predecessors witnessed their conversations and brought the truth to light. As diplomats trained by Liege himself, they recognized the way that he and Vigilem worsened the conflict between Primes wherever they went, undermining old treaties intended to keep the peace and setting old rivals at each other's throats.

"If anyone could have negotiated peace, it was Liege Maximo. Instead, he used Solus's death to set the world ablaze."

At the mention of her predecessors, Elita traces a circle over her spark and darkens her optics completely. When she looks up, her optics are impatient but expectant, as though she believes Windvoice will agree with her on all these obvious counts.

But her very first words have already stricken Windvoice to the core. "Caminus's memory files of Solus's death are corrupted," she says, feeling ill. The trauma of Caminus's grief is well-documented, at least. "We have only historical accounts as recorded by others. Ballads, laments. Do you have more?"

The impatience starts to win in Elita's face. "Why do you question this? It was Camien witnesses who brought word that they heard Megatronus and Solus fight within her smithy, who found her body and her Forge hammer cast aside, and Vigilant who knew of the pact." Then her demeanor shifts, and she lowers her voice. "Whatever Vigilem has told you, it is a lie. He is a _liar,_ with his master's own silver tongue. They deceive you as they deceived all the Vigilant who so blindly followed them."

And that would make things so much simpler. But in Windvoice's spark, she only ever felt truth. Everything else burned away between them, until she and Vigilem understood each other on an impossible level.

"One last question," she says. "Did they ever say why?"

"Why what?"

"Why have Megatronus kill Solus and ignite the war?"

Elita shrugs, but it's clear in her furrowed brow that she doesn't understand why that matters. The Carcerians have their own assumptions, just as Camiens have theirs. "Power. To set the Primes against each other, and have dominion over Cybertron after the field was clear."

"Did Liege confess to any of this?" Windvoice asks. "Is that what he wanted, in his own words? Or did they assu-"

Elita cuts her off. "I do not know why you ask this now," she interrupts. "But as far as their sentence goes, ask Metroplex himself. He was the one to oversee Vigilem's trial and exile. He, Chela, and Caminus fought Vigilem to a standstill, so that we could see justice done."

At Windvoice's stiff, awkward silence, Elita continues. "You place your trust in dangerous people. But I do not think you a liar. You are not incapable of doing the right thing."

\---

_I can feel the heartbeat underneath the concrete._

_-_ [Madeon of Iacon](http://www.metrolyrics.com/g00/the-city-lyrics-madeon.html?i10c.encReferrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8%3D&i10c.ua=1&i10c.dv=14), <<The City>>

\---

She doesn't stop to finish scanning Luna-1. She's too distracted to concentrate, with that echo of denial hanging over her head like a blade.

Vigilem's shuttle bay transforms open without hesitation when Windvoice pings him. Only once she lands does she lean back in the pilot's seat and press her hands over her optics, trying to knead the headache away so that she'll have a clear head for this. Then, with a shaky vent, her systems wound into tight knots inside her, Windvoice leaves the shuttle bay and walks up to Vigilem's processor chamber. He doesn't say anything, though she knows he's watching: Vigilem's sensors are in perfect working order, compared to Metroplex's.

And if she believes Elita, Vigilem uses them to keep an eye on Windvoice, specifically. Even when she's not on board.

Windvoice swallows, squeezing one arm with her hand for comfort, and walks into the processor chamber. Her quiet footsteps echo a little in the silence. It's not normal - something is _always_ moving in a Titan. Vigilem's internal systems should be a constant, familiar hum.

His processor is still and blank, an unreadable sphere. For a horrible moment, she thinks he's dead - even when Metroplex was dying of injuries and an incurable illness, his processor was never fully dark. "Vigilem?" she calls, with a blip of panic she knows is irrational.

Silence. Nothing from the speakers embedded in the walls, not a flicker from his mind. Just the creeping sensation that she's being watched.

If he were damaged to the point he couldn't speak, she'd be able to see warning glyphs. There's no sign of a struggle.

Which may mean he just doesn't want to speak to her.

"If you want me to leave, I will," she says, clutching her arm a little tighter. "I don't intend to trespass if you don't want me here."

But she _had_ assumed - flew the shuttle straight here, with only a muddled ping toward the end to request entry, presuming that she'd be welcome.

The floor doesn't shift. But the door slides shut behind her, soundless and smooth. Blast shield-strength doors.

She's lost her momentum. Vigilem is still watching. But if he doesn't _want_ to talk, she can't make him. Without anything else to do, Windvoice steps forward and slips down into a crisscross seated position, her head stinging as she lets herself slump over her knees.

Not the most professional posture for a cityspeaker, maybe - but according to the Mistress of Flame, she's not a cityspeaker anymore. Excommunication is like that, sometimes.

"You're quiet," she says at last. It's all she can think to say. The thought of throwing all her frenzied speculation at Vigilem's wall of silence exhausts her.

She twitches when Vigilem's voice hisses behind her, caustic. [You think a Titan has nothing better to do than chat with the likes of you? Such pathetic, tiny, rushing things -]

Ah. He's in a mood. Possibly because she met with Elita. "You don't remember Liege Maximo conspiring to kill Solus Prime," she says, raising her voice to be heard over Vigilem's scathing hiss.

It takes him a full ten seconds to respond. Windvoice gets some gratification out of finally shocking a Titan into silence.

[Don't be ridiculous. I remember _everything_ ,] Vigilem says, his voice growing more acidic - and agitated.

It's tempting to whip around in her seated position to face his voice head on. But that's not Vigilem - Vigilem is already before her. Windvoice sits up straight and clamps her hands on the caps of her knees, staring at his stubbornly blanked out processor. He's giving her nothing to work with but his words.

Fair enough. "And what did 'everything' entail?" she asks, matching him acid for acid.

The floor rolls under her in a sharp jolt to knock her sideways. Her folded legs clang against the paneled floor and rebound, and she pushes herself back up easily.

[Surely you already know this story. It's a good one,] Vigilem says, mockingly, from multiple speakers.

And quite abruptly, Windvoice has had it. She gets enough of this sort of deflection from Starscream on a daily basis. She opens a comm line where Vigilem can access it and glowers at him defiantly as she rests her chin on her fist.

[...What are you doing?]

"Phoning a friend," Windvoice replies, still glaring, as Repository answers.

RP: WV.  
RP: A new research topic?  
WV: Yes. Of a sort. I was wondering what you had on historical records of the death of Solus Prime, and the role Liege Maximo played in Megatronus's betrayal of the Thirteen.  
\-- VM has joined the chat! --  
VM: Why are you doing this?  
WV: Because the truth matters, and I don't think I know the whole truth.  
RP: The Primal Era is an unfortunately muddled one, I concur. The Trion period of recordkeeping is particularly notorious for historical revisionism and the enshrinement of the myth of Primal exceptionalism, which was only exacerbated when the rising Functionist movement began to actively censor dissenting works. The persistent fiction of only one Prime being able to kill another Prime should be enough to demonstrate just how ridiculous the mythologizing propaganda was during that time.  
VM: ...  
VM: What the slag are you?  
RP: An archivist. Who the slag are you?  
WV: Any primary sources you have concerning Solus's death and Liege's subsequent trial would be greatly appreciated.  
RP: Tricky. You do not disappoint.  
VM: You will not find whatever it is you are looking for, Windvoice.  
VM: And you will not like what you _do_ find.  
RP: Who is this, by the way?  
WV: Vigilem. Don't worry about him.  
RP: The real Vigilem? Interesting.  
VM: Don't be ridiculous. I am not.  
RP: It would match your comm tag. I don't suppose you have any literary or historical works you might be interested in -  
Vʍ: That is an upside down [W], not an [M]. Windvoice. Stop this.  
WV: I want to know the truth.  
VM: **_Then have it._**

This time, when Vigilem knocks her feet over wings, Windvoice is ready for it. The floor flings her away as it transforms in a rush of movement, forming jagged peaks and valleys in sharp rows as Windvoice catches herself in alt mode. The metal walls flare out to smack her back down, one panel slapping down at a time as she careens around the leading edge of the wave. Vigilem's processor burns with red and fuchsia light, a torrent of glyphs she can't read as he lashes out.

She'd claim the wing burn threw her off, but this _is_ Vigilem, all around her. The next wall panel transforms ahead of her rather than aiming where she is right now, and neatly backhands her across the nosecone. She hits the ground with a shout, tumbling out of alt mode as she rolls down the side of one of the crests in the floor. The blast door slid open at some point during their conversation; she's only a few steps away from it, if she can pull herself upright and make a dash -

If that wasn't exactly what Vigilem wanted. The only one who could open that door, after all, is him. Even this patch of floor directly leading to the exit is suspiciously smooth.

Windvoice lurches to her feet, swaying a little as she reorients herself, and wipes a smear of energon trickling from a vent. Over the jutting peaks of the transformed floor, she stares at Vigilem's whirling mind.

She can't help but wonder what he wants to hide so badly that he's willing to drive her away to do it.

As if he doesn't know her exactly as well as she knows him.

"I'm not leaving," she says, holding her arms out to either side.

Vigilem snarls, and tears metal away from the floor to pin her against the wall. [Which do you prefer?!] he demands, flinging another wave of metal to join the first in flattening her against the wall. One sheaf hits the underside of her chin, knocking her head back. She forces the only arm she can pull free between her neck and the pressing metal, to keep it from compressing her fuel lines. [My lies?! Or Prima's!]

It echoes, even if he doesn't intend it to.

Then, without warning, he drops her.

Windvoice hits hard, her right knee bashing against the floor. As she pushes upright and raises her head, she sees the walls and floor recede back into their usual configuration in a soundless ripple.

Vigilem's mind has gone quiet again. [Get out. Go back to conspiring with Elita,] whispers a wall across the room.

He sounds exhausted. And old.

With some difficult, Windvoice manages to cross her legs again. The right knee whines, but nothing's twisted out of joint, so it can stuff it. "No," she says, resuming her original posture.

A flicker of red winks around the far side of Vigilem's processor. [No?] His voice is dangerously soft.

She steels herself. She is a lake.

"Tell me Prima's lies."

This time, the silence stretches out so long that she wonders if he's gone back to ignoring her. A sulking Titan is a strange, wondrous thing.

[But you already know them so well,] Vigilem says, finally. Bitter, so bitter. [Megatronus was a vicious, violent brute out of the barbaric Darklands. Easily manipulated in his rages. He grew jealous, easy to convince that he was denied his fair share of power among the Primes, to persuade that he was deceived by Solus Prime as she chose golden Prima over him. After the first expedition in the name of Pax Cybertronia fell apart, he fell into a brooding sulk, hating all the Thirteen. But especially Prima.]

His voice turns cutting, cruel. [It was **_easy_** to convince him that she lied to him. They all lied to him, laughing behind his back. He shoved that ridiculous hammer through her chest like she was made of talc.]

Vigilem laughs, derisive laughter that vibrates through the floor, into her struts.

He's trying to upset her on purpose. The door's still waiting, behind her.

Windvoice raises her chin. "And yours?" she asks.

The room goes very still again. She's not sure he's circulated the atmosphere since she came here.

And he's right. When he tells her the truth, she _doesn't_ like what she hears.

[Megatronus did precisely what Solus asked him to do.]

"You're lying," she says. No hesitation: it rolls out of her mouth on autopilot. A default, preprogrammed response, without any emotion behind it. She can't process fast enough to feel anything but mute denial.

This time, when Vigilem laughs, she deserves it. [That's what they all say. Even Caminus. Even you.]

It's worse than she imagined. It's unfathomable. She knows with perfect, ringing clarity exactly how Caminus must have felt, hearing something like this - she is, after all, his child.

But the answer was staring at her a year ago, and she never recognized it.

"The Forge," she whispers into her hands, as she buries her face in them. The Creation Lathe is a low hum in her mind. She'd thought it herself - that the core of the Forge hammer burned like a spark. The Lathe could sketch out the blueprints for her, here and now; it's all here, in her head. "Her spark became part of the Forge hammer."

Which leaves only three options, really: the hammer absorbed Solus's spark by sheer chance at the moment of her murder, an accident of the truest kind; Solus retrofitted the Forge just before she died, as a last resort; or -

"She designed it like that. On purpose," Windvoice finishes, staring at the seams on her hands and feeling the world crumble under her feet. Vigilem could pull the floor out from under her and dump her in the filtration system right now and she wouldn't even notice.

Maybe it was a failsafe in case of her murder, or maybe Solus intended to die all along, to fuel to Forge. Either way, Windvoice left the hammer down in the core to be smelted down, taking any evidence and any chance for her to confirm this story with it. She'd been so focused on Unicron that she didn't absorb what was right in front of her.

Vigilem could still be lying - a lie he planted deep inside her a year ago, while pretending to come to an accord. A long 'con, as the Autobot saying goes. As Starscream informs her on a semi-regular basis, she is an amateur at manipulation and conspiracy. If Windvoice went around telling this kind of tale, Elita would probably come to Neo-Cybertron and behead Windvoice herself, consequences be damned.

She needs to hear it through. She feels like she just set the final piece in its place, only to look up and realize she's surrounded by the jumbled mess of an even larger puzzle. Windvoice clenches her fists and presses them against her forehead before raising her head. "Tell me your lies," she repeats, hollowly.

A tiny _clank_.

Windvoice looks up, and sees the merge cable waiting beside Vigilem's processor.

[I would rather show you,] he says, with glyphs that flicker in front of his processor, his audible voice silent.

It's a trap. Any reasonable person can see this is a trap. Once the merge cable connects to her processor, Vigilem can crack her mind open like a geode. Any Titan can overwrite a cityspeaker's processor; their minds are so immense that it's almost impossible to counter them. He could melt her into a puddle of slag on the floor, or walk around in her frame with a painted smile on his face, and she'd be too processor-dead to notice.

Vigilem is a liar.

Chromia always said she was too reckless.

Removing the Creation Lathe takes a moment. It keeps running in the background of her processor right until she force-ejects it. But that frees up her reinforced port so she can connect to Vigilem.

[Show me,] she says, as Vigilem's mind rolls in like the tide.

\---

_I see everything. I remember it all._

_Gently, lovingly, I preserve it in my heart._

\- [Akhmatova of Tempo](http://honeyfleshed.tumblr.com/post/171895445696/i-see-everything-i-remember-it-all-gently), <<Untitled>>

\---

Windvoice has merged more times than any cityspeaker has ever dared.

Caminus, comatose, could crush a cityspeaker's mind completely unawares with the force of his baseline processor function. Metroplex was the first conscious Titan she fully connected to, and even then, for a spark-stopping moment, he almost swept her away before recognizing the limits of her brain processor. Navitas barely noticed she was there.

Vigilem tried to kill her in every way possible, the first time. Only the Carcerian chains restricting his conscious mind – and the destruction of his brain module – kept her from drowning as she fought him for control of his body. And he'd slipped in beneath the surface anyway, slowly reclaiming every system that Windvoice reactivated in her struggle to fight the undead Titans around them. She'd stretched his cramped limbs for him, mentally and physically.

The second time, they understood each other. The only thing installed on his new, unfettered brain module was the ghostly image of Vigilem's self Airachnid tried to copy from Windvoice's mind. His spark accepted the Vigilem in her spark memory with a greedy thirst, shredding whatever Airachnid managed to upload before her mnemosurgical needles were ripped out. Dropping Elita down the garbage chute had been indecently satisfying, when they worked together.

This time, Vigilem drags her down.

Windvoice loses her mental footing instantly – a red ribbon wraps around her and yanks her down through the dizzying rush of Vigilem's immense mind. She thrashes. The ribbon wraps another loop around her, covering her mind's optics, and she tries to claw it away from her face –

[There. Still, Windvoice.]

\- as she lands somewhere surprisingly solid. The surface flexes under her feet, like woven piano cord rather than metal flooring, just tense enough to support her weight. Windvoice crouches and peels the ribbon off her face with slightly more success to better assess her surroundings. The ribbon falls away, unravelling as it goes.

The maelstrom of Vigilem's mind swirls overhead, heavy with thought. Down here, at the bottom, Vigilem sits on a throne. The mental avatar is scaled to a more ordinary Cybertronian size; the polished gold and blue of his armor looks more angular and sharp-edged than the blocky, sanded-down edges of his physical form today. His face is exposed – grey, with stark black lines where Caminus chipped their matched face paint away. He stares at her, aloof, as she gets her bearings.

The mental construct of a room surrounds them. Woven banners hang in dusty swathes on the walls, but when Windvoice tries to read them, the patterns and glyphs blur into a fuzzy smudge. The wiring sparks; neglect has almost rusted the wires through. Beneath the woven memories, weapons line the lower half of the walls. Vigilem's integrated swords, and others that she knows: a battle axe, a pair of crossed daggers, a staff, a spear, and more.

All the main forms of Camien close-range weaponry. They never had the energy to spare for long range blasters like Elita's.

The bleed over between their minds is minimal. She can feel the lingering overlap where she drew on Vigilem's mind in the past, though – knowledge of how to fight like something out of the Pit itself burns in her fingers. This place feels familiar, like she brushed through it in the past: the weight of Vigilem's mind turning overhead, the odd blue-white filter that fills the air, more a sensation than a color…

His presence in her mind nearly demolished her sense of self. Hers barely leaves a ripple.

Vigilem rises from his seat. It's shaped like his old eye markings, layered repeatedly in a jagged throne that looks horribly uncomfortable. As he leaves it, the seat sinks into the floor in staggered segments. Windvoice waits as patiently as she can under the circumstances, while Vigilem circles around her, his optics scrutinizing her with a defeated expression.

All the while, she's on high alert, scanning the edges of her mind for signs of more memory bleed. Vigilem is more active than Caminus or even Metroplex – and capable of more active _malice_ , if it suits him. If this is a trap to take her body, she at least needs enough warning to put herself beyond use. If it's a trap of another kind – to subtly warp her sympathies or make her susceptible to the kind of lies and suggestibility that Elita warned her of, she can't relax her guard.

[Constant vigilance,] Vigilem says, with a rumble of ironic amusement that tinges the whole room. He smiles crookedly and walks around her to reach the far wall.

It gives her a jolt when she sees the armor on his back parts around a set of longer, jagged thorns that frame either side of a heavily armored spine. Transparent semi-circles of metal link the main roots with a smaller set that hasn't extended fully. His mental self's roots are bleached and small – reaching for something that isn't there.

She hasn't seen Vigilem in root mode since they left Cybertron. Metroplex landed. Vigilem hasn't.

The roots transform away with an abrupt snap, sheaves of metal armor folding back into place. She's not sure she was meant to see that. With a belligerent grumble, Vigilem stalks away, reaches up, and tears a rusted banner off the wall.

Memory vibrates as the banner wraps around them of its own accord. It shrouds the room before unfurling, and leaves her and Vigilem standing in the stars. Windvoice can vaguely sense cables underfoot, but the dark background of stars stretches out in all directions.

They're not in Vigilem's processor memory banks anymore. This is _spark memory_. Vigilem drew her into his spark the same way she did to him.

If he can lie here…she doesn't even know if that's possible. Create the illusion that they're in his spark, maybe. But one can't alter or tamper with a spark's memories the way a mnemosurgeon can modify the processor's. Like it or not, the spark is inviolate.

Which means anything that follows is either an elaborate ruse, or the truth as Vigilem's own soul knows it.

Windvoice doesn't know which frightens her more.

[Here are the lies,] Vigilem says.

The figures that appear are simplified – blocks of color and simple shapes that form stylized mecha. The first is white and silver, with a golden EM field that fans around him like a rising sun. He stands almost three times as tall as Windvoice. He holds up a hand, his stylized features unreadable as he reaches toward the stars. A few drift toward him and orbit his hand, entirely out of scale as Vigilem speaks.

[Prima wanted the stars. Pax Cybertronia. And while he heralded it as a new, enlightened age, spreading our light to the galaxy...Solus looked down, and saw the end.]

And Solus is there - almost as tall as Prima, lean and corded, her arms powerful and heavy with armor; she wields her hammer in one hand with ease. The rough silver and fuchsia of her frame seems more detailed. Windvoice can see the glyphs etched along the hammer and the lines that frame her eyes. Her aura is a coruscating flame that crackles around her, kinetic in a way that Prima's isn't. Familiarity, maybe?

The figure of Solus spreads her free hand, and the image of Cybertron rolls into view beneath her: gleaming, electric with light – and riddled with dark shadows that spread from the core.

[The dying core,] Windvoice murmurs. She drifts around, trying to absorb this view of things. The perspective is a weird thing to wrap her mind around.

Vigilem continues. [She confided her concerns to only a select few, out of fear of the panic that might erupt. She told my Liege, as her closest neighbor, and one whom she trusted to better predict how the delicate balance of power between the Primes might respond to such news.]

Liege Maximo appears. For a moment, he looks so vividly _real_ that Windvoice takes a step back in reflexive alarm. But what she mistook for the flare of his cape is a dark silver aura that drifts around him as he reaches up to take Solus's arm, and patiently listens as she bends to speak in his audial.

[He advised her to be sure. To have proof – and better yet, a solution.] Vigilem's voice hardens as Solus draws away, and Liege fades. [And she also told Prima, who led them all.]

Solus and Prima begin to step around each other in a dance. Windvoice's forehead knits in a frown as she watches, trying to place what feels odd. Prima – something about the stylized figure, and the stiff, two-dimensional cutout appearance of his EM field compared to Solus's radiant flame. Prima holds out his hands, and the stars string between them in the constellation of a sword.

[Prima asked her to forge him something new for the glorious expansion to come. Solus agreed, but did not craft it in her nearby smithy in the Crystal City. Instead, she came home to Caminus, and set to work analyzing the source of the planet's slow death and finding a way to repair it, once and for all.]

Solus moves closer as Prima disappears into the starry backdrop. Windvoice takes another hesitant step – either the floor is still there on some level, or physics are irrelevant – and commits the vision of Solus leaning over her anvil to spark, the Creation Lathe a golden spiral that curves over her corded headdress. Despite everything, it fills her with awe. There are details here that none of the statues of Solus in Caminus could include: the gritty, unfinished texture of her armored smith apron, or the strong arch of her nose. A dark, shadowed figure lingers by her side – more indistinct than Prima and Liege Maximo, like a cloud of cinders and energon pink sparks in the outline of a mech. They fade in and out; Windvoice squints to bring the figure into focus, but it remains a stubborn blur.

As Solus reshapes her Forge hammer, Cybertron darkens under her feet. Not much – the fade is so gradual that the effects won't truly reach the surface for an age. But enough that Windvoice recognizes the grey tint that spreads over the planet's shifting layers. Tectonic forces slow as the core falls quiet and still.

[Solus could not find a way to repair the damage. She came to realize that there _was_ no damage.]

[What?] Windvoice snaps out of her reverie and whips around to stare at Vigilem. He floats a good distance back from the stylized impressions, his expression tired and distant as he narrates. She'd half-forgotten his avatar was there. [But -]

[Look at Cybertron, and you would see no damage. No missing sectors, no sabotaged parts,] Vigilem says, patiently. [I understand there are weapons these days that can destroy a planet with a device the size of an optic. But the cause was something far more insidious than that. She called it a planned obsolescence. Solus attempted to journey to the core exactly once, and what she found seemed to trouble her further still.] Vigilem shakes his head. [She often withdrew to the seclusion of her forge, sealed the room against even Caminus, and refused messengers sent by the other Primes. So far as they knew, she was deep in her work on Prima's request.]

[But while she worked, Prima set forth, and his first venture ended in slaughter. He and those Primes interested in Pax Cybertronia took a company of troops to the nearby system of Thyatira aboard his Titan, Emissary, and attempted to annex them in a grand show of Cybertron's might and honor and civilization. For their own protection. To uplift them.] He lists the reasons with a note of mockery as Primes that Windvoice recognizes from their statues arrange themselves around Prima's outstretched arms – purple and red Nexus, green and yellow Quintus, blue and gold Onyx, and bronze Amalgamous – as they encircle a newer, smaller planet and its disc-like moons.

Windvoice feels ill. The echo of Optimus's actions and reasoning feels like a slap to the face. [What happened?]

Vigilem's voice is perfectly mild. [The Thyatirans did not appreciate being forcibly included in Cybertron's new empire without their consent. They fought off Prima's forces and denied all further attempts at contact with vigor. Prima returned, insulted and nursing the wounds to his ego, and sought someone to blame.]

The figure who stalks out from behind Prima is entirely unfamiliar to her. The Fallen's face was stricken from the record, just like his name. He is remembered in the Way of Flame only as a murderer. Megatronus stands barely a hands-breadth taller than Prima and Solus, but his armor lends him a weight and width that dwarfs both, with high shoulder guards that arc higher than his helm. He looks almost unpainted, his rough-hewn frame mostly a deep grey with dark accents, and lines of coral red biolights so thin they look more like cracks in a dark shell. The way he carries himself reminds her of a captain of a Camien guard squad, or perhaps Ultra Magnus – a commander.

Strange. The impression of Megatronus is nearly as detailed as Solus's figure. Not to the same degree as Liege's, but still.

[He accused Megatronus of crudely fumbling the first contact. Megatronus felt insulted by the accusation in turn. He claimed to have led the vanguard at Prima's request; first contact was initiated by Prima, and as a commander he fought only to defend the Primes when the Thyatirans retaliated.] Vigilem sounds studiously neutral. [Since we were not present, and the other Primes particularly closed-mouthed on the subject, it was difficult to ascertain whose interpretation of events was more objective.]

Windvoice shakes her head, watching the flat disc of Thyatira flip in slow circles against the stars. [I have never heard of a place called Thyatira. Not in all of our historical records. The Primes spread to the uninhabited systems around Cybertron's for the sake of resources, before the war erupted and the colony Titans left and lost contact with home.]

Before the advent of mass starship manufacturing, Titans were the most reliable method of interstellar travel. Cybertronians capable of true deep space flight, beyond the moons' orbits, were few and far between. The difficulty of persuading a Titan out of city mode when they were firmly settled was a major limitation. The Primes' ability to launch forays into other star systems with their loyal Titans was one of their crowning achievements, a source of true renown.

Those other systems were rarely named anything except strings of numbers and glyphs. Placeholders. Non-entities. By the time they abandoned Cybertron's original solar system to come to Neo-Cybertron, the millennia of war had long since reduced most of the neighboring systems to dust, or worse – uncharted minefields.

Vigilem prowls behind Thyatira. A bitter note of animosity lingers in his expression as he glares at Thyatira like the planet personally wronged him. Or as if it's a convenient target on which to transfer all his banked rage. [Alpha Trion _did_ scrub that embarrassment quite clean. Nothing would tarnish Prima's reputation in the years that followed,] he says. Then his battle visor slots down over his optics, concealing part of his expression as he turns away. [My Liege…tried to mediate the dispute between Prima and Megatronus. But while Prima insisted that they try again to spread Pax Cybertronia to salve his wounded pride, Megatronus felt it was a pointless, unwelcome endeavor. When Onyx Prime, his oldest comrade, sided with Prima's proposal to return to Thyatira in a greater show of force, Megatronus stormed out.]

It plays out: Prima, vanishing into the gleaming, simple tower of the Citadel of Light, and Megatronus walking away. The figure stalks toward Windvoice, increasingly solid as he comes closer, until she can't resist the urge to stumble out of the way so Megatronus can stride past her with earth-eating steps.

[And came to Caminus,] she finishes for Vigilem, after a moment.

He inclines his head. [Liege did not think further expansion wise, either, after the diplomatic nightmare of Thyatira. He offered to return to repair relations with the Thyatirans and negotiate trade on more equal terms. But his offer was denied, and he came home to me. For a time there was an uneasy peace, as Megatronus and Prima refused to acknowledge each other's existence, and the other Primes went about their business.]

Windvoice looks back at Prima one last time. The Citadel, really; Prima's figure can't be seen. Liege Maximo, Megatronus, and Solus Prime all stand behind her now, in a loose triangle of incredibly lifelike figures. Liege Maximo looks almost petite compared to the two larger mechs, his narrow face curved with a small, unreadable smile as Solus leans over her Forge and Megatronus leans against the side of her anvil, his aura a brooding storm cloud.

She knows what's going to happen. The tension in her chest mounts, her spark climbing into her throat as the three pieces fall into place. Vigilem's allegations can't mute the voice in her mind that wants to shout for Solus to run.

As if she heard, Solus looks up, and walks back the way Megatronus came.

[Then Prima requested Solus's presence. Insisted upon it. He wanted the weapon she promised to forge for him. When she informed him it was not her priority, they argued,] Vigilem says, as Solus reaches the Citadel and turns her head up. Her corded headdress swirls around her as she shakes her head. [And when she returned, she seemed…resolved. Solus was ever a mech of indomitable will. She gave everything of herself to her creations, and her Forge was no exception.]

[After that, my knowledge of what occurred grows…sparse. I know that she did not tell Caminus. She asked for privacy when she, Megatronus, and Liege spoke in Caminus's halls; they discussed the other Primes, and Prima's obsession, and my Liege's thoughts on how to resolve the argument, but what they spoke of I know only because my Liege imparted it to me after the fact. She had recused herself from the Thyatiran debacle, and though she agreed with my Liege and Megatronus that Prima's temper grew unpredictable, her purpose lay elsewhere.]

[Then, that final day, she sequestered herself with Megatronus in her forge room to ask him to help her finish her work. Again, she had Caminus give her privacy. Because she knew there was one thing Caminus would never do.]

Vigilem sounds hollow. Windvoice feels the same way.

[Let her die.]

She can't see Vigilem, on the far side of Liege Maximo's too-solid figure. Liege's unreadable smile is a rictus, his head low as Megatronus and Solus face each other over the Forge. The quality judders and drops abruptly, as though a door slammed shut on Vigilem's – or _Caminus's_ \- perspective, until only Liege is in focus as Megatronus picks up the Forge hammer.

When the Forge goes through Solus's chest, Windvoice is the only one who flinches. Liege lifts his head, the back of his helm to the scene as Solus's Forge begins to burn with an eerie light.

Vigilem rests a hand upon Liege's shoulder. A prickle rolls over Windvoice's armor like a flash burn at the hate beginning to seethe in Vigilem's eyes. [Caminus became aware the instant Solus died – of course he did – but had little to none of the context that came before. One of Solus's companions struck out at Megatronus in grief, and he fled to us, stricken by remorse at the sudden reality of her death,] he says, as a swirling cloud of cinders tackles Megatronus away from Solus's flat, undetailed form, and then bursts apart, the cinders lost against the dark as Megatronus stumbles away. [I could only assume that something went wrong. That Solus had further instructions for Megatronus that were never passed on, or which he misunderstood. Her body was interred, and her Forge held safe by Caminus's children – but the Lathe vanished. And because of what came next, no one knew how to stop the world from dying.]

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Windvoice claps her hand over her mouth, and belatedly tries to make the movement look normal. She stares at Solus's lingering form and can't see any sign of the golden Lathe.

Because _Arcee_ took it. That black and pink figure lurking by Solus's shoulder, so indistinct and obscured that Vigilem may never have met her in person –

Did he know? Did Vigilem recognize her, by field if not by face? Withhold the name on purpose?

Arcee could hold so many answers.

Though it burns her to keep silent, Windvoice swallows the questions down. [Megatronus attacked Prima,] she prompts instead, hastily trying to pick up the thread of the narrative she knows so well. Vigilem's studying her face with a strange expression, and she suspects that her flurry of realization didn't go as unnoticed as she'd hoped.

But he lets it lie with a bitter laugh as he begins to pace again. [Would that it were that simple.] One arm gestures, tearing through the vision of Solus's workroom in an angry burst. [My Liege knew of the quarrel between Megatronus and Prima. He knew also of Prima's subsequent falling out with Solus. But he did not anticipate what would come next. The true depths of Prima's corruption. The Citadel of Light and the Crystal City lay halfway around the world from Rhoedeion, and long-distance communication technology only in early development. Yet Prima announced Megatronus had betrayed and murdered Solus within an _hour_.]

His voice rises in volume, uneven and full of that seething anger. A pause, as Vigilem visibly reins in his fury – but it can only do so much. When he paces past Windvoice, the ambient sensation of _fury_ blazes in her sensors. [Only the resonance of our space bridges could commune so swiftly over such distances, in those days. Metroplex and Caminus sent word through the network to Emissary, and Prima _immediately_ seized upon it as an excuse to denounce Megatronus. His Titan, Kathikon –]

[His _Titan?!_ ] Windvoice forgets her wariness, jarred. It's – that's –

Her shock trips up Vigilem's restless stride. He stands stock still for a moment, and then nods, curtly. […Yes. Another name they wiped out of living memory, I suppose,] he says, tightly. [Kathikon found herself surrounded within a day by the combined forces of Prima, Quintus, Onyx, and Nexus Prime, who punched their way through the curtain of Darklands settlements and nomadic caravans that claimed allegiance to Megatronus. A rapid mobilization of troops that could only have been possible if they had planned such an assault months in advance. Nexus's Titan Fusion made their home near one of the poles – the trip should have taken their troops weeks. Incensed, realizing that Prima must have planned to attack Kathikon for some time, Megatronus marched to confront Prima with his side of events and demand he end the siege.]

The spark memory images flicker to life as Vigilem rattles off the details, clipped and to the point: a rich purple and gold Titan, her broad buildings designed for fortification rather than aesthetic, surrounded by rank after rank of tiny troops. Quintus, Onyx, and Nexus stalk around the edges of the starry field, disproportionately imposing compared to the miniature battlefield before them; Prima has yet to leave his Citadel in the distance. No other Titans are in evidence, but Kathikon is enough – there's an extra edge of _weight_ inherent in her that seems to reverberate through the unseen floor. Windvoice staggers a little as Vigilem's memory of Kathikon's space bridge resonance rocks through the vision. [dutiful] Kathikon, who could fight anyone to a standstill, her smile a rare, silent thing.

[We never knew what became of Megatronus after he stormed the Citadel of Light. But Kathikon mourned, and we knew Megatronus had fallen. Anything else Solus might have imparted to him was lost that day, and Prima capitalized on their deaths to promote his own agenda. He either did not believe the truth…or he did not care. He'd already prioritized expansion over Cybertron.]

Kathikon's cityscape ripples – the earthquake of a Titan in motion. As the armies arranged against her scatter and regroup, trying to pull her down, Kathikon rises up, first into a root mode with finials the size of skyscrapers and sword along her spine, then into ship mode.

[Kathikon was a being of both duty and ruthless practicality. With Megatronus gone and Onyx, his oldest and strongest ally, turned against them, she knew they stood no chance. Those Kanae who chose to remain surged out to fend off Prima's armies with the rest of Megatronus's warriors in a final stand. Kathikon gathered the rest, those she owed protection and succor, and left.]

And she did. Does. One final surge of resonance rolls out from Kathikon as she rises above the field – as people clash in her shadow - until she is so far away -

[- in umbra igitur pugnabimus.]

[- and the stars grew distant in their orbits –]

The piercing immediacy cuts off, and Windvoice realizes that Vigilem is supporting her with a hand on each shoulder. She'd _felt_ that – for a moment, she _lived_ that memory. The bleed over between her and Vigilem hasn't been that severe in ages. The gravity of Kathikon's spark resonance feels too real, on a level even Liege Maximo's image couldn't match.

A shaky ventilation cycle. With Kathikon's powerful space bridge resonance fading, it's easier to stay a step removed from the memory of the armies overwhelming Megatronus's forces. She feels numb as she tries to fit this entire incongruous battle into the story she knows. [And the civil war?] Because this can't be it. Not all of it.

[Caminus was deep in mourning. Metroplex -] Vigilem's hands tighten convulsively on her shoulders [- high and mighty Metroplex, so above it all! So cautious and careful in his neutrality! As though his age ever made him wise.]

He moves away. The bitterness and rage are no longer held in reserve; Vigilem boils with hate, and it shakes Windvoice in a different way. [My Liege looked at the wreckage of Megatronus and Solus's lives. At the way Alpha Trion left his hermitage in Metroplex's valley to tout Prima as a savior for his swift dispensation of justice. At Nexus and Quintus, who re-enslaved Megatronus's surviving warriors in gladiatorial pits equal to Septimus's of old, for their own amusement. At Prima, who knew of Cybertron's slow demise, and ignored it in favor of his own machinations…]

[And he found nothing worth saving. He had dedicated his life to the peaceful union of the Primes. He believed that the only way our civilization could evolve past the divisive conflict that plagued it was to encourage that cooperation so that we could become something better. But their covenant was a sham.]

The world falls apart around Vigilem as he stalks away. Liege Maximo's image and aura overlaps with each step he takes, until they almost look like one mingled figure with arching horns, battle mask and visor, and a billowing cloak.

He reaches out, to the small figure of Micronus Prime, and taps the Prime on the side of the head with a deceptively light touch. It knocks Micronus stumbling into Onyx Prime – and chaos erupts.

[As Kathikon departed, my Liege and I set out to undo all that he had achieved. With a select, trusted few, we unraveled the old treaties – first setting the major unaligned tribes against the Primal cities, and then pitting the Primes' old grudges against each other. Micronus against Onyx, Onyx against Nexus, Amalgamous against Quintus, Quintus against Epistemus and Alchemist... With each domino that tipped, the chaos grew exponentially. We liberated Darklanders like Galvatron from the pits once more to wreak their own havoc. Nexus's own armies splintered under our influence and began to attack each other, and the rest soon followed. Everywhere we went under pretext of diplomacy, alliances deteriorated.]

That sounds more like the war Windvoice knows. The casual way Vigilem lists the details, his voice full of vindication, sends a shudder down her spine.

[Soon, everyone save Vector Prime and Alpha Trion had erupted into war. Vector Prime and Tempo left, following Kathikon's example.]

[But you didn't try to tell them the truth.]

Vigilem flinches like she's struck him.

Windvoice sets her wild, whirling thoughts and speculation to rest as best she can to consider all this objectively. True objectivity will have to wait until she disconnects from Vigilem. Here in a spark, it's impossible not to be influenced by the presence of his emotions. [If all of this is true, Liege Maximo knew - everything. You could have communicated Megatronus's side of the story to the other Titans and let them and their Primes judge the truth for themselves. If you have memories of Solus speaking to Liege Maximo and Megatronus that Caminus doesn't, why not share them sooner as evidence?]

If even half of this story is true, the horrific _waste_ of it all could stop her spark. Kathikon's existence, she can confirm through Metroplex. The rest…there may be no one left alive able to corroborate the whole thing, except Arcee, and she's not talking.

The impression of Liege Maximo still lingers in Vigilem's silhouette; his flinch is palpable, his shoulders curled. After a pause that draws out half a klik too long – long enough that Windvoice frowns - Vigilem laughs. [Heh. Perhaps we were as blinded by grief as Megatronus, in our own way. The thought of reaching out to Prima – of smoothing things over with a silver tongue, of _compromising_ to find peace as my Liege had done so many times before – felt abhorrent. We could not bear it. If it was already that easy for Prima to dismiss the terms we'd negotiated and raise three Primes against another, the Thirteen were already fundamentally broken.]

And that's –

He sidestepped something. Somewhere in that pause was a disjoint. There's something Vigilem left out, something he omitted. She can feel it. Something that would undermine his version of events? Or…

[And our silence was our downfall, as much as Solus's discretion was her own,] he continues, unaware. [My – _Vigilant_ , who remained behind to guard Caminus, realized too soon what my Liege was doing to the other Primes. They told Metroplex. Without context, without understanding what Solus had asked for and how Prima twisted it, he condemned us.]

When Vigilem rounds on her, the last vestiges of Liege dissipate, along with the rest of the memory fragments that played out around them. It just him and her, hanging in the dark, with rage roiling under their feet like a seething sea. [Do you know what it means? For a being as ancient as Metroplex to proclaim you a traitor? Eldest and wisest and best of us?! None of the other Titans questioned it. Chela left Onyx and flocked to make good on Metroplex's call at once.] Vigilem walks toward her, looming more with each shuddering step, and the stars are screaming on the very edge of her hearing - [Only then, after they fought us to a standstill, did I try to explain the truth to Caminus. _And do you know what he said to me_?]

Millions of years of pent-up fury churn –and under that, there's a sucking wound in their chest where a spark should be, and Windvoice knows exactly what Caminus said.

[You're lying.]

The echo cuts through Vigilem like he's made of paper. His face convulses, expression so far past pain that it's nigh unrecognizable.

Then he collapses in on himself. The exhaustion seems to smother the rage. [With all the other Primes busy tearing each other apart, Alpha Trion alone came to pass judgement on my Liege, alongside my traitorous children. I was…too angry to speak. Metroplex, Chela, and Caminus found my silence damning.] There's no emotion left in him. [Trion declared Liege Maximo a treacherous liar. A deceitful manipulator who only pretended to act as a mediator between the Primes in order to seduce them, orchestrate their downfall, and claim power for himself.]

[And after that, any time you tried to explain, it was just more lies.] And that perception fed into itself over the years, all the way down the line to Elita-1, today.

The world's a grey tangle, and nothing is simple.

She doesn't know what to believe.

Vigilem shakes his head. [You say that as though anyone asked.]

Another voice chimes in. [Interesting!]

The jolt of shock is Vigilem's as much as Windvoice's; she feels the _real,_ physical floor shudder under her folded knees at the same time the tremor of emotion shoots through Vigilem's spark memory. His surprise is strong enough to nearly send her into spark arrest, this deep in the merge.

They both know that voice. [[You!][You,]] they exclaim, in almost perfect sync.

[Me!] the Muse of Life says, with a winning smile. She strides up to them as stylized as Vigilem's memories, her optics so bright that they burn like white holes in her helm. When she reaches them, the tableau of Solus at her Forge folds back up out of the dark. Vivere hums, tapping her chin as she examines the Forge hammer.

The shock's still pounding in Windvoice's chest. She presses the heel of her palm over her spark, trying to ease the knot of pain, her ventilation system shaky. Vigilem grimaces. [Your kind has not walked the surface in a billion years. To what do we owe this ominous honor?] he says, with a disgruntled furrow in his brow.

[Any matter which concerns Vector Sigma concerns us,] Vivere says, waving her hand absently. The stylized blocks of her form reconfigure into something more elaborate; an older style of frame, maybe. She stoops and prods the Forge hammer with the tip of a pointed finger, and the Forge's power core pulses with fuchsia light. [And this has concerned us for a _very_ long time. When Solus did not return, I feared the worse. It took too long for us to recognize the obsolescence eating Cybertron from the inside out without her, and by the time we did, we could not repair it with the tools at our disposal.]

[Is that all you have to say?] Vigilem says, irritably.

Windvoice has other concerns. If the Muse of Life is going to drop slagging _anvils_ in the middle of the conversation, she must expect to get hammered. [Solus truly visited the core?] she demands. Her voice sounds thin and rattled to her own ears. Then, more to the point – [How did you even get in here?]

As far as Windvoice knows, Vigilem only ever had the one merge point installed.

Vivere tosses her head, with a fern curl of a smile for Windvoice. She straightens, the Forge hammer balanced impossibly on its pointed head at the tip of her finger. [I walk where I will. Am I not the Muse of the Spark?] Then she tips her head toward Vigilem, considering. [But you are not lying. At the very least, you believe this to be the truth.]

The glyphs she uses render [spark] and [life] as a pun, which gives Windvoice an instantaneous theological headache. The Muse flicks the Forge up, absently, and watches it spin over her head before it comes back down. With the backdrop of outer space all around them, the physics of it make a negative amount of sense.

The bottom drops out of Windvoice's spark. Vigilem twitches at her emotions. [You can tell something like that?] she says, her voice tight with dread. A large part of her writhes, denial a dense anchor in her processor. [You can tell when someone is lying?]

The Forge hits Vivere's palm and vanishes in a shimmer of light. She blinks, her optics full of burning liquid. [Here? Easily. Can't you?] she says, as if it's the simplest thing in the world. To Vigilem, she adds, [Clarify one thing for me – you called this one Prima, yes? The same as the First Knight of Cybertron?]

With a snap of her fingers, the figure of Prima rises up just as Solus's did – his armor gleaming, his aura perfectly flat. Lifeless, almost.

Vigilem shifts uneasily. He eyes Vivere like she's an unknown element, his arms folded over his chest as he frowns. […He claimed that legacy. It made him a shining beacon for the rest of the world, in a time of deep turmoil. Few remembered the First War well enough to dispute it,] he says, slowly, as though he's not sure what her aim is.

Vivere clicks her vocalizer. [Troubling. The Knight Prima died in the First War. And Quintus, you said? This one?]

Another snap, another Prime. More detailed this time, Quintus is a muted yellow-green, with three sets of pale yellow optics, a rigid, unmoving intake set in a maskplate, and an extra set of slender, insectoid arms. Windvoice hadn't noticed earlier, with the lack of detail Vigilem allowed for the Primes outside his main focus, but Quintus's aura is a writhing thing, like a skirt of tendrils that wraps through and around him.

Vigilem actually glances at Windvoice, as though looking for her approval. Or at least her take on where this is going. She shrugs, just as lost. [One of the Thirteen. His Titan was Aletheia,] she says, cautiously. That much is common knowledge on Caminus, though Quintus was one of the less well-known and worshipped Primes.

The fact that she'd never considered the contradiction – the fact that the names of all the Primes and their Titans were immortalized in the Way of Flame, yet the complete absence of any mention of the Fallen's Titan…

Where is Kathikon now?

Meanwhile, Vivere shakes her head. The whimsical cant to her smile looks frozen. [We sensed their presence. But we thought they had sabotaged the core somehow. It would seem they were subtler than we ever imagined,] she says, studying Quintus Prime's face with fascination.

[Who?] Vigilem says, stepping closer to Windvoice. She's engrossed in her own thoughts: between Vigilem's tale and Vivere's odd endorsement, her processor is too full to cope.

Vivere's smile flickers. [Ah. You are young for a Titan, aren't you? Our owners, of course. The Quintessons.]

[...Our what?] Windvoice says, at a loss.

[We were to be their weapons of terror – an army of mechanical slaves with which they could threaten the galaxy, so they could revel in and profit from the fear of techno-organisms that followed. They objected quite strenuously to our rebellion.] Vivere shrugs, her smile full of teeth. [So you might understand why I find the idea of a Prime named Quintus, and someone named Prima pushing an imperialist agenda that spread terror of Cybertron, to be _most_ interesting.

\---

_You made a really deep cut,_

_And baby, now we've got bad blood._

\- you know who

\---

He waits under the quiet stars. The beacon pulses under his heel, a ramshackle thing pieced together from what scraps he scavenged before the Raging Death fell on him like a hammer, her wrath one more piece in the one puzzle he could never solve.

The silence speaks for itself. Of the few Titans strong enough to respond to the neutral ping, only two are marginally coherent: Metroplex, and Vigilem. Navitas circles around ceaselessly, stuttering and frightened. Caminus's voice barely broadcasts as a whisper – more a memory than a true reply.

Prion. Fusion. Both brain dead, Prion beyond saving. Prion's screams echo, warning off any who might seek to investigate her annihilation. Chela lays processor-dead, with no sign of anyone crafting a new brain module to replace the old. Without outside intervention, it may be another four million years before his spark gathers the necessary resources to reconstruct the processor – if his spark doesn't suffocate or go nova in the meantime. Titans live so long, and so slow, and Chela was so far from home.

Either there is no response, or Tempo chooses not to respond. Those are two very different things. He knows better than to discount either Vector Prime or her Titan, with the technology at her disposal. Solus and Vector were ever on good terms, and it showed.

Hypatia and Vitri return such faint, distant signals that he almost mistakes them for background cosmic radiation. They're far enough away that a space bridge might have difficulty reaching them; his beacon is artificial, boosted as much as possible, and even with it he can't confirm whether they live or not. The two pings could just as easily be that of alien races advanced enough to mimic what they hear and send it back.

And Emissary, and Aletheia –

He does not know what to make of them. When he triangulates the source coordinates of their strange, belated responses, they're not far enough away to account for the long delay in their pings. The oddly dissonant ring of Emissary's perfunctory transmission makes his paint crawl, like he scraped his dentae along diamond. Aletheia's harmonics are less obviously corrupted, but once they start her pings arrive one after another.

A trickle, then a flood.

Faster and faster, rising in frequency - until he shoved the beacon over and scrambled away from it, gripped by a nameless horror.

Something is terribly wrong.

And in between those distant, dying stars, the galaxy is a grave. More Cybertronians lived, fought, and died in this strange war than Liege Maximo ever knew in his time. More than he _will_ ever know, their numbers stagnant and falling. Their struggles and grudges and conflicts and griefs are so far removed from those that he knew.

The world moved on. He can count the number of his contemporaries left in the low hundreds - some, like Alpha Trion, so enfeebled as to be nigh unrecognizable. Of those he might once have held accountable for the ruin of their lives, only a handful remain besides the Vigilant.

All of his old unanswered questions remain so. Their lives were reduced to legends of a past, golden age, caricatures of themselves, while he languished in Vigilem's safest chamber. History polished Prima's reputation until it shone like gold.

The rage died a long time ago. But the grief still stings.

So he waits, and, when Arcee and her companion land three kilometers away, he unsheathes the darts in his hands to greet them properly. He has no illusions of beating one of the Dark Twins in a fair fight.

The trick is convincing her that he's made an effort.

Liege rolls a dart between his fingers, and arranges himself for subtle effect. If they want a villain, he can give them one. His sprawl elegant; his helm, angled just so. How Arcee reacts will tell him far more than what she says.

She circles around while the Camien Chromia approaches the shallow dip in the flat grey stone where he waits. Not that Liege can detect her – Arcee is more absence than presence, without even a ghost in his sensors. Vigilem's dedicated care could keep him well-maintained in his long incarceration, but it couldn't give him the technological advancements produced by war. He's no tactician, but he can predict well enough that if the Camien walks right up to him so boldly, Arcee will approach from his blind spot to cut him down.

Their paths have intersected three times now, whenever Liege's hops between isolated planets grazed their search radius, and the sight of a Camien bearing an energy ax never ceases to amaze. He leans the side of his face on a folded fist, four darts glinting along his cheek, and lets the bitter mirth jangle in his field.

When she breaks cover and charges at him, Liege slips from his seat and dips, sliding around beneath her raised foot in a sweeping glide.

A faint jerk - but not enough resistance to yank him back. When he finishes his spin to straighten behind Chromia, a singed slice splits the hem of his cloak where Arcee's energy blades seared right through the metal weave. The black and pink figure crouches on his seat, now, the beacon crushed beneath her heel. Her mouth is closed, her optics coolly focused as she lunges over Chromia to pursue him.

If she were smiling, he'd be in true danger.

He dodges and weaves around Arcee's next two strikes; he flicks one dart at Chromia, then another, to keep her pinned as she hunts for an opening. But Arcee dominates the battlefield to the exclusion of all else. She's ruthlessly shut down any space where a partner might fight alongside her in the intervening years, leaving no hole where her twin used to be. Any opening left exposed in her defenses is covered by a brutal, relentless barrage. It leaves Chromia at loose ends, unable to close with Liege without entering the danger zone.

She's corrected for Galvatron's absence by overcompensating, and it has crippled her ability to fight in concert with others. Liege can't take advantage of it, unfortunately. But he can recognize the signs. He sidesteps once, twice, in a flicker of misdirection that leaves him three meters off from where Arcee aims each time. With a twist he summons the scattered darts back to their place in the slots between the struts of his hand; he doesn't intend to use their secondary function in a brief brawl like this.

He's evaded them before with sleight of hand and feints, knowing full well that crossing Arcee would be suicide. When Arcee starts to overwhelm him with superior speed and fighting ability, he deliberately initiates the maneuvers he's taken before. One of her energy blades nearly takes off his arm at the elbow as Arcee anticipates him and cuts off his avenues for escape one at a time. He ducks and feels the upper curve of his horns burn beneath a slice that would've decapitated him.

This time, when Chromia seizes her chance and hurtles at him, Liege allows himself to be distracted by her gambit. He spins away from Arcee to face Chromia, and Arcee slams into his side with enough force to crush his internals. Once he's down, he's out – Liege rolls, wobbling, but then Arcee's on him again in a rush, landing hard on him with a knee and slamming the back of his helm against the ground. It rattles his processor and leaves him with a mouthful of energon where he's bitten his own glossa. Careless.

But she doesn't kill him.

Interesting. He needs to know what she believes she knows before he can assess the situation more accurately. Liege allows his head to loll to the side, his stricken daze only half feigned as he watches Arcee sit back with narrowed, assessing eyes.

And in the dead sky, something blinks.

When he flinches and stares over Arcee's head, startled back into full consciousness, it's not an act. Arcee's snarl tears through the air like a revving engine and she slams him against the ground with a blade to his main fuel line. Then Chromia's shout of alarm draws her attention up, too, and all of them are left staring at the wide, hideous white optic that spreads across the sky, the black and grey branches of the craft's stabilizers cutting dark lines like cracks in the universe.

Or a familiar pair of wings.

The optic craft blinks again and reappears even lower than before with a burst of explosively displaced atmosphere. Chromia stares, mouth agape, her weapon forgotten as she drops to one knee to ride it out. Arcee, on the other hand, whips around to stare Liege down, her teeth snapping together.

He almost wishes he could take credit for this one. As it is, Onyx's arrival is an unholy complication. He needs to reassess this.

With an apologetic shrug, Liege snaps his fingers and discreetly taps his heels together, and the soles dear Solus welded onto the bottoms of his feet teleport him twenty meters to the right. “Wait! He's getting away!” Chromia yells. Arcee's faster still; Liege can feel energon trickling down his throat where she almost caught him.

But she doesn't chase after him when he bolts.

Instead Onyx Prime steps out of the iris and drops straight down. His centaurī legs fold up under him as he falls into his avian form, the blades of his wings reflecting the eerie glow of the optic craft as he stoops in the predatory dive that was always his signature. Many a rival to his rule over the Kalydonian steppes broke themselves attempting to emulate it, colliding with the ground at top speed, unable to pull up before they dashed themselves to pieces.

Flashstepping mid-stride cannot fool Onyx's keen optics. When he pulls up sharply and closes his claws around Liege's waist the impact is surprisingly light, though Liege can't lift his head once the raw speed behind Onyx's dive knocks him back.

Onyx caught him once before, so many years ago. The plunging sensation in his tanks as Onyx scoops him up and glides back to Arcee and Chromia sparks too many sensory memories. Liege, driven from his old home by the Darklanders rolling steadily on toward the Crystal City, entered Onyx's territory well aware of Onyx's preferred method of dealing with trespassers. He'd negotiated peace with local tribes before, but rarely approached those calling themselves Primes – tyrants like Septimus often claimed the title, disinterested in anything but their own power and self-aggrandizement. Making peace with Onyx was his first true test.

And Onyx was very beautiful. Still is. The relationship had not been one to last, but they'd parted amicably, and as the Thirteen drew together to form a covenant over the following centuries, Liege had counted Onyx as close a friend as Megatronus had.

So – when had that changed?

More importantly, how had Liege missed it?

Onyx skims to a stop before –

Chromia. Alone, still stunned, her expression wary as she takes a step back. When Onyx transforms back, his four hooves striking the stone hard enough to spark, he towers over her as he did over most of the Thirteen.

Interesting. Rapidly, Liege makes another note on the open question of Arcee's allegiance. _What does she know._

Returning to Cybertron as Onyx's prisoner rather than Chromia's changes things. He settles back, allows himself to be chained with resistance, and bows his head in apparent defeat. He holds Kathikon's location safe in his mind as Onyx drapes a possessive hand over his shoulder to steer him into the iris, and wonders.

\---

_When I came back I didn't need a weapon. I was a weapon._

_-_ [Janet Pluchinsky of Earth](http://queennmargo.tumblr.com/post/142414648856/when-i-came-back-i-didnt-need-a-weapon-i-was-a)

\---

Onyx offers to give them a lift back.

(He's not actually giving them a choice.)

Easier to slip on board the ship she knows than to try to infiltrate the optic craft out of hand. Arcee tucks herself into the familiar ventilation ducts as Chromia cautiously accepts Onyx's offer of an escort back to Neo-Cybertron, all her systems muted until the only thing detectable is the faint, artificially diminished pulse of her spark.

She hasn't been able to directly sense her spark or EM field in years. The stealth mods installed during her brief tenure with the Autobots let her adjust the settings one step removed, but it's been long enough that she's forgotten what the sensation was like. Not since Jhiaxus dug into her, putrid, probing, to gain a better understanding of twin bonds and how they might advance his combiner research. That the agony of the experiments nearly destroyed her only gave him a sadistic satisfaction.

And Galvatron had not come. Maybe severing the bond was the first thing Jhiaxus did, careless, cruel –

They'd parted so many millions of years before that, fractured by Arcee's choice. But Jhiaxus remained part of Galvatron's troop under Nova Prime when they returned from the Dead Universe. Surely Galvatron knew she was there.

She didn't care. It didn't matter. After she got to kill Jhiaxus a sufficient amount of times to work through the rage, she never gave it a second thought. They lived separate lives, handling their affairs separately, and if they found themselves on opposing sides, it wasn't personal.

Then Optimus killed him, and it mattered _._ It matters. It matters. _It matters_ -

She refuses to think about it. He's gone now.

Instead, once Chromia docks their ship within the optic craft's grasping arms, she slips out to ghost through the halls. A listening device in the exterior vent of their ship's hood allows her to listen as Chromia disembarks. Onyx is cordial as he greets Chromia again with old courtesies that Arcee only recognizes because they used to be so common that she and Galvatron memorized them in boredom. Then he guides her at her request so she can personally stand guard over the cell Onyx has provided for Liege Maximo until they return to Neo-Cybertron. He's full of non-answers for Chromia's careful questions, impossible to read. Bared teeth could be a smile or a threat – Arcee's never been good at reading the difference. Deciphering the minutiae of regular mechs' emotions and arbitrary mannerisms only ever gives her a headache; Primes are worse.

She'll be fine. Onyx isn't one to play with his food: if he intended to kill Chromia and hijack Liege for his own purposes, she'd already be dead, and Arcee would already be slaughtering her way through the halls until she worked her way up to the Prime. Whatever his objective is here, Chromia is irrelevant to him. As long as she stays on guard, keeps a watchful eye out, and doesn't sting the Prime's pride, she should survive the trip back.

No point in energy blades, here. Arcee maps the fastest routes from the bridge to the cellblock, catching a glimpse of Onyx's crew along the way. Once she sees Liege locked in the brig, his head hanging low against his chest, she flicks through her assorted selection of guns until she finds a good one. Nice. High caliber. Not her good sniper rifle, but good enough.

She trains it on the back of Onyx's head, and lets the targeting HUD take over.

Now he lives because she lets him. Much better.

RC: You're covered.  
CH: I really don't feel covered.  
RC: Irrelevant. You are.  
RC: Would it make you feel better if I came down there and walked around with the gun right up against his head?  
CH: No, not really.  
CH: Exactly how much do we trust this guy? Because I feel seriously exposed. This ship came out of nowhere.  
RC: I don't. What you do is your business.  
CH: On so many levels – not helping.  
RC: What do you want me to say?  
CH: I don't know! What is he like? What's his favorite color? Is he going to actually take us back, or are we stuck on Onyx Prime's wild ride?!  
RC: Tall. Blue. Both, most likely, to some degree.  
CH: Can you at least give me something to work with, here?  
CH: All I know about Onyx Prime is that he's one of the Thirteen, had a giant army of beast alts, and got an extra shiny statue in the Memorium Hall because he helped avenge Solus Prime. I would ask Windvoice for an actual history lesson, but she's not exactly here right now!  
RC: Ha.  
CH: …I can't tell if that was sarcastic or not over text comms.  
RC: Join the club.  
RC: I think my brother once put it best.  
RC: Frag the Primes.  
CH: Oh.  
CH: Oh, great.  
RC: Keep your weapon up.  
CH: Will do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, man, if exRID isn't gonna give the Primes some backstory/personality/motivations that don't boil down to 'Shockwave time travel copout 2k18,' then you just have to take matters into your own hands.
> 
> /jazz hands into the sunset/
> 
> Miscellaneous sources not linked in the text: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dienekes


	5. Chapter 5

\---

_But I am a ruin myself, wandering among ruins._

\- [Heine of Earth](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/332653-the-stones-here-speak-to-me-and-i-know-their), <<Romanticism in Ruins>>

\---

Afterward –

– afterward –

– Windvoice sits with her fingers digging into her temples, head low and back against Vigilem's brain module, and says nothing at all for a long time. She never quite buries her face in her palms; she stares blankly at the metal seams of her hands instead, scant centimeters from her eyes, unseeing.

The horribly, gut-wrenching _certainty_ of Vigilem's memories eases off as her mind adapts. The echoes of external emotion and memory fade as her processor filters out everything but her own memories of viewing them. She's gotten disturbingly good at identifying foreign source codes in her files: both Starscream's and Vigilem's are automatically flagged.

Vivere's not there when Windvoice finally raises her head. The Muse explained absolutely nothing before disappearing from Vigilem's spark memory, and Windvoice is starting to empathize with Metroplex's resignation a lot more than she did last night.

[You are quiet,] Vigilem says. He's been silent, too, with a hesitant lilt in the atmosphere. As if he's afraid she could tip over at any moment.

A wry half-smile curls one side of her mouth. She lets her head rest on one hand, applying pressure to one throbbing eye. "Heh. I have too many things to say, and think. I don't know where to begin." Either Vigilem is confident enough in his position to lie to her on a massive scale, or this is the truth. Whichever is the case, it's an unholy complication.

The blast shield doors open in front of her. She suspects Starscream was the one who had those installed for Vigilem, since the two of them are apparently thick as thieves. [Go. Your headache is contagious. And I would not…push you.]

"I don't know how I would confirm any of this. Let alone prove it in a way others might believe." Even if Repository finds something - even if Arcee talks – there will always be a shadow of a doubt. _Vigilem lies._

[Tell me about it.] There's a note of not-quite-irony in his voice.

As she stands to leave, her headache a low-grade buzz that may be exacerbated by a need to refuel, a thought occurs. "You don't happen to have another merge port in here, do you?"

[No. The Muse was below, in the spark chamber. Walk where she wills, indeed.] A snort. Then Vigilem sobers.  [Be…cautious of trusting her.]

That's the last thing she expected him to say. Especially given the fact that Vivere's off-hand comment about being able to sense truth is one of the only marks in Vigilem's favor. "Of a Muse?" Windvoice asks, nonplussed.

[The Muses are alien, in many respects. Their priorities are not yours. And Vivere in particular does not view death the same way that an ordinary Cybertronian does.] Vigilem sounds deeply troubled. [If she is walking the world once more, she does so with her own agenda. I…do not want to give the impression that I am planting doubt about your potential allies. But the ability to move through Titans this way is not one of Vivere's abilities. It is Motere's. If Metroplex has any sense, he could confirm this.] By the end his caution is tinged with grudging sarcasm, like he's judging Metroplex for not telling her this in the first place.

Motere. Another name she only knows from old, apocryphal stories. "The Muse of Motion." Windvoice shakes her head, and sighs. "Fair enough. Blind faith in Primes has hardly served any of us well, so far." Treating Vivere as someone infallible would be a mistake along the same lines; as difficult as it is, a living mech is a far cry from a story.

It's harder to shake that faith in Solus Prime. The thought of her as someone flawed - who could confide in all the wrong people and fail to communicate at the critical moment - is perhaps the part of Vigilem's story Windvoice finds hardest to swallow. It sticks in her throat like a jagged fragment of metal, cutting into soft fuel lines.

"But you don't know her well?" she asks.

Vigilem grunts. [Hmph. You underestimate how old the Muses are. Older than the Knights. Older than most surviving Titans. Perhaps only Vector Sigma itself is older.] A noncommittal shrug of his walls. [One could make a case for Metroplex and Metrotitan, perhaps. Ancient, rusty old -]

Windvoice arches a brow. "She did call you young," she says, teasing. Vigilem grumbles again. "Were...you and Caminus -"

[Don't.] His voice goes flat. Subject closed. [Just know that of all the Muses, Vivere is one of the most dangerous. She could reach out and stop your spark with a touch.]

Well. It could be worse. Windvoice is still haunted by what she's read about Tarn of the DJD, and what horror he could've wrought on Neo-Cybertron with his voice if he'd lived and the _Lost Light_ crew had not. "I'll keep that in mind. There was a Decepticon who could snuff a spark with a few sentences. So I think I'll trust her a slightly more than that, and work from there."

For the second time in a day, she's rendered Vigilem speechless. [That – that is just _excessive_ ,] he says at last. Then he recovers. [I wish -]

He breaks off. Windvoice waits in the doorway, chafing her arms with her hands. A faint flicker of thought ghosts around Vigilem's processor, too transparent and fleeting for her to catch as he sorts through his own thoughts.

[I wish I could have explained. In a better way. In a way he understood,] he says, haltingly. [You think I do not miss him? You think I do not regret –]

He's not referring to Vivere anymore. Or Metroplex.

It sends a knife of some tangled, confused emotion through her. She flinches and turns, leaning heavily on the doorway. She needs to get away, she needs – a million different things. One thing more than most. A foundation that's not here when she's floundering. Something solid she can trust, without this horrific tumult Vigilem just unleashed, or the impending implosion that is Starscream, or the Council at cross purposes over her own failure to communicate.

But Chromia's not here. And she can't afford to fall apart.

So she draws herself up. She stops, and she lets her head fall back to she can stare at the ceiling. Behind her, Vigilem is silent and still again, like he knows he's overstepped.

"I miss him, too," she says.

Because she understands him. Even when she doesn't want to.

-

She realizes she's still ignoring Optimus – only semi-deliberately – when she parks the shuttle beside Metroplex and sees an only slightly familiar figure waiting on the grass beside the entrance to the city.

Jazz returned to Earth just after Windvoice arrived on Cybertron, in the wake of Shockwave's…everything. He came up once or twice in her infrequent visits to chat with Blurr at Maccadam's. "We both wanted to be done with it," Blurr said, spinning a cocktail shaker in his hand at top speed. "Just – done. Out. Then Optimus dragged him right back into the thick of it – never mind how Jazz felt about the whole thing - and now I'm down a musician every weekend. Him _and_ Sky-Byte, one right after the other -"

Then he'd launched into a tirade about scheduling decent entertainment when people keep dying or absconding to Decepticon hippie communes, and Windvoice had gently tuned him out.

Jazz bobs his head to a beat right up until Windvoice draws near him; then he raises two fingers in a wave with a tiny smile. Unlike most Cybertronians, who tend to have anywhere from a few centimeters to a meter advantage on her, her optics are perfectly level with his glossy visor. "Jazz. How are you?" she asks, politely.

"I'm cool." He waves his hand in a 'so-so' gesture imported from Earth. "You got a second?"

Her schedule's already beyond salvaging. "Of course."

He shifts his weight, then tips his head out toward the open airfield with a questioning look. Windvoice shrugs her wings rather than her shoulders. Once they're a short distance from Metroplex's walls, in the empty space between her shuttle and Rodimus's new…er, work-in-progress, Jazz slows to a stop. His body language is relaxed, his Earth alt's doors canted almost lazily; his expression is more serious. "Look, just a head's up. How much do you trust Starscream?" he asks, blunt.

Ah. "I trust him to be himself. Which varies from day to day," she says. "Why?"

 _Everyone_ asks. She can't really blame them, no matter how tired she is of coming up with reasonable responses.

Her response startles a crooked, sheepish grin out of him. "Nothing. Nothing concrete, anyway," he admits. He hesitates, then seems to come to a silent decision. "Just – look out below, okay? Seems like you've got a lot of good here. Wish I could stay a while longer."

Look out below? Windvoice nods slowly, frowning in confusion. "I'll keep that in mind." When Jazz nods and starts to saunter off, alien music playing from his speakers, she calls, "And you are welcome to stay. Always."

She doesn't know what keeps him on Earth. Duty? A sense of obligation to Optimus? But she feels like it needs saying.

Another quirked smile. "Yeah. I'll keep that in mind, too."

-

She makes it halfway to Metroplex's processor chamber before she runs into anyone else. She knows the quickest route by spark; even with Metroplex on the mend at last, it still feels right to speak to him in his processor chamber, where he's most aware.

So, she thinks nothing about walking past what is usually an empty room - only to freeze when she hears a deep, familiar voice through the dented door.

"- since last we met, old friend."

[Years change, and stars -] Metroplex begins to say.

Windvoice stands there awkwardly, torn between heading on toward the processor chamber, or knocking on the door to let Optimus know she's there, or - something. Anything other than stand here and eavesdrop.

But Optimus continues to speak while Metroplex's fragmented thoughts coalesce. She hears his footsteps on the other side of the door, then the shift as one of the old, abandoned chairs she, Nautica, and Chromia shoved into that room so long ago creaks under Optimus's weight. Despite herself, she can feel her ventilation system pause. "You still have a few nice dents. I would've thought you'd be in better repair by now. It did not seem like such an unrealistic goal, when you first returned after so long with Alpha Trion," Optimus says, in that grave tone she knows so well. Then a sigh. "Perhaps I should have stayed. But Earth needed our help."

He says the last part like a mantra.

Metroplex persists. [Prioritization: full systemic reconstruction, chronic and acute mineral deficits, infrastructure -]

Another sigh, as though Optimus can't hear him. Windvoice's vocalizer catches when she hears something - a hand - rest against the other side of the wall before her. She steps back, guilty, and forces herself to walk again. Interrupting will do no good, and she doesn't want to listen in.

She can still hear him, though, until she reaches the way up to the main corridor. Optimus sounds - resigned. Tired. "I will do what I can to restore your speech functions properly. Cybertron is gone. With luck - if Primus stands with us - we can set this right."

[farewellregretful], Metroplex finishes, and then Windvoice is out of sensor range. She ducks her head and rushes on.

For once, the processor chamber itself is empty when she reaches it; she could check Lightbright's schedule easily, and that usually gives her a sense of where the apprentices are, but she's not sure she wants anyone to hear what she wants to ask Metroplex. Not until she has a better idea of what she's dealing with. Of how Metroplex's memory of events lines up with Vigilem's. The floor's back together, so it's less of a minefield to traverse, but she still feels a pang at the fact that Metroplex is surrounded by jury-rigged supports and hasty patch jobs, after Optimus's offhand comments.

She can tell herself they've done the best they can, under the circumstances. Optimus would just call that an excuse.

"…Metroplex?" she calls, closing her eyes for a moment to reset them. She wants to think this through, in as calm and collected a manner as she can.

Some of her rattled upset spills into her voice all the same, and Metroplex detects it. [Windvoice.] [Urgency] [danger[?]] alternate between audible speech and projected glyphs, as the atmosphere tenses.

"No, nothing like that. I -" Windvoice catches herself on one of the hanging cords, then hesitates and reviews her entrance. The way she barged into Vigilem earlier, and assumed. She shakes her head and dredges up the old courtesies. The cityspeakers of Caminus always approached Caminus with respect; she's grown informal, over the years. "May I speak with you?"

[affirmation][always]

She needs to focus. But Optimus's indirect criticism stirs up old guilt, and a sense of her own inadequacy. Windvoice reaches out and lets her fingers sift through the bright sparks of light that make up Metroplex's glyphs. "We'll work on your speech centers next. I'm sorry. We should have done that sooner."

Metroplex's processor hums quietly. [Unneeded – underlying conditions] [- fractured -] [focus restoration at 78%] he says, with very solid, very forceful glyphs, and Windvoice is abruptly reminded that even if Optimus didn't notice her, Metroplex was perfectly aware of her presence outside that door.

"Maybe. But that _should_ be next. You deserve to be able to speak freely and think clearly." Then Windvoice stops, cycles a vent, and cautiously switches gears. "I've…been speaking with Elita. And Vigilem."

[…]

She swallows and tries not to let the sudden silence deter her. She doesn't want to interrogate Metroplex. But she has to start somewhere, and her sources are limited. "Metroplex… What happened to Kathikon?"

The perpetual shine of Metroplex's processor flares; a cluster of pale purple glyphs join the field, interspersed with yellow uncertainties and error messages. [Kathikon…] [?] [Gone[so far away] ] [Gone?] 

[(futurity) and some will sing forever more[future tense] ]

He recognizes the name - she can tell that much, at least. His confusion mostly seems to stem from not knowing where Kathikon is now. Windvoice shakes her head. "No, I mean - Vigilem said that Kathikon was attacked by multiple Primes within hours of Solus's death, when it should've taken their armies weeks or months to reach her. Like they were planning to do it long before Megatronus actually -"

This time, the abrupt surge of thought is a deep, uneasy red. For a brief, dizzying minute, Windvoice can't follow Metroplex's chain of thought at all. She's grown so accustomed to those flashes of insight that help her interpret Titans that the abrupt lack of comprehension leaves her scrambling. She catches a few solid glimpses, here and there, before Metroplex's whirling thoughts spiral out of control.

[Caminus: Grief/shock – required counterbalance.]

[Underestimation of conflict. Miscalculation.

] Error. Error? Error -]

[as the glimpse of a burnt-out ember/recalls the regret of the sun]

[She was filled with sighing, the city,

And the ways thereof with tears;

She arose, she girdled her sides -]

Then Windvoice loses the thread entirely. Frustrated with herself, aching, she slumps down beside Metroplex's brain module and rests her forehead against the lower curve. "I'm sorry. I don't understand," she says, exhausted and miserable with it.

[No/yes] drifts before her optics.

"Vivere said he wasn't lying," she whispers.

[made of nothing but regrets] Metroplex replies, before she turns her optics off, and drifts.

\---

_Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends & we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red._

\- [Kait Rokowski of Earth](http://kaitrokowski.tumblr.com/post/80406157970/nothing-ever-ends-poetically-it-ends-we-turn-it)

\---

Metroplex fades in and out of coherency. When Windvoice leaves the processor chamber and heads down to check that everything's alright in the space bridge chamber, she finds Lightbright hastily transcribing a message that came in through Metroplex's patched comm relays. Which explains some of the difficulty, at least, if his speech centers were occupied elsewhere.

"Tell me you're having a better day than I am?" Windvoice says, half-pleading, as she enters. In her mind, she's putting together a list of people she dearly needs to consult. Lightbright is on it. Most of the Council representatives have expressed a tentative interest in coming to Neo-Cybertron in person to finish out the tumultuous session; she thinks she'll need to ask Airazor and Tigatron if they're willing to bring a guest she'd like to consult, as well.

"If I never have to strip a wire again, I think I'll live. I'll count this as my life's work, but there's a _limit_." Lightbright smiles. "But hey! Good timing! Trypticon sent another request, but Metroplex won't translate it. Just relayed it, as is. Can you make any sense of it?"

Metroplex remains quiet, only the usual ambient hum of the space bridge in the air. Windvoice glances at the bridge, their unfinished conversation still in limbo, but when he doesn't speak up she shrugs and touches the golden holoprojection Lightbright has pieced together. The written glyph form of Trypticon's harsh accent looks like a different language in Lightbright's hasty calligraphy. Windvoice taps it to separate the glyphs out a bit, shifting the layers of light here and there until she finds something recognizable. Metroplex apparently transmitted it to Lightbright exactly as Trypticon insisted: it helps to arrange them in a circle, each glyph rotated a quarter of the way around the circumference.

"Slash and Slipstream. Name designations," Windvoice says, after staring down the first two glyphs for five minutes. The names were the trickiest part: Trypticon appears to have made up his own name designation subglyphs. "They are [legatus.] He's sending representatives, because, er -" she squints and turns another glyph sideways "- I think the closest translation is that he doesn't trust Metroplex to convey things properly. His Council representatives 'will speak his words' instead." He uses the same [speak] from [cityspeaker.] The final glyph is a time stamp for later this evening.

Lightbright nods, following along with a finger as she purses her lips. She tilts her head the opposite way of Windvoice's to squint. "He _does_ know they haven't voted about letting him on the Council yet. Right?" she says, shooting Windvoice a _look_.

"If he has more than ten people on board, he already has a better case than Optimus." Which is saying something. "We'll sort this out."

-

After helping Lightbright double check that Metroplex's space bridge will be prepared for the arrival of representatives from the Council worlds – including, to Windvoice's unease, a bland request from Caminus's gate – Windvoice asks Lightbright to her impromptu gathering, tentatively arranged for the next morning. Any sooner than that, and she can't expect the Eukarians to be able to pass on her invitation and respond to her request in time. Their tribes sprawl widely across the lush organic surface of Eukaris, rather than being restricted to the confines of a Titan city, and depending on the circumstances it might take time to contact Blackarachnia.

As she leaves through one of the open air exits along Metroplex's neck and flies out over the city to stretch her wings, she receives a surprising response from, of all people, Repository. She'd sent it hoping that the reclusive neutral could contribute something via comms. From what little she's gleaned from Starscream's snippy gossip, Repository has lurked around the fringes of Cybertronian civilization since becoming disillusioned with Megatron's methods during the war, and showed little interest in rejoining society. The abrupt RP: I'll be there comes as a mild, though not unpleasant, shock.

She comes to rest on one of Metroplex's outlying skyscrapers, legs dangling over the edge as she surveys the water just visible in the distance, before a ping from Ironhide draws her attention down. When she peers in between her feet, she sees him on the road at the base of the building, two white and red fliers by his side. Both of them have helms that are entirely white, while Fireflight recently acquired a red maskplate.

Right. That.

For a second, she feels stuck; something hooked under her spark casing tugs her back, just this side of painful. Ironhide was fine – he could never do the job permanently. She wants to dim her optics and pretend, just for a fleeting moment, that she's about to fly back home to find Chromia waiting for her, instead.

Accepting new bodyguards feels like tearing the old wound open all over again.

But she puts it aside. Always. Too many people rely on her for her to drag her wings like a sulky protoform – or worse, like Starscream. She transforms and circles down to them, her fan blades angled for a near vertical descent.

"Windvoice," Ironhide says, his weathered face creased in a smile. Then one brow shoots up when she lands and he gets a better look at her. "And you're hurt. I'm gonna hear about this one."

She winces; she should've gone home to repaint her singed wing, instead of flying around aimlessly for a half hour. The damage from Elita's blaster truly is superficial – not worth taking to a medic when there are others who need more immediate assistance. "Nothing to worry about," she assures him, while he continues to shoot her a skeptical look. Fireflight looks up at Silverbolt anxiously, but the Aerialbots' former leader just waits at attention as Ironhide shakes his head.

Really, it's not that bad. Windvoice looks up at the sky, then vents and lowers her voice. "I was never in any danger. Elita just wanted to talk," she amends, begging Ironhide not to make it an issue with her eyes.

Ironhide concedes with a sigh. "I trust your judgment. Which is why we're getting you some backup, before Chromia takes my head off." He jerks his thumb toward each Aerialbot in turn; she knows them, but it's been a few long months and none of mechs involved in Superion were in a good mental state when they first emerged. Fireflight in particular stares at her with shining optics, like he's star-struck. "Silverbolt, and Fireflight. They can keep up with you, wings or walking. So _please_ let them."

Fair. Windvoice laughs, covering her mouth with a hand as she feels the hook in her chest tighten. "Ha. I'll do my best."

Ironhide grins too, rolling his eyes. Silverbolt just snaps a salute. "Reporting for duty!"

Fireflight scrambles to follow his lead. "Yeah! We can keep up with you! Definitely," he says. There's a wobble in his voice; he sounds almost desperately earnest.

Wheeljack once said they'd be lucky if they ever flew again. The prognosis had grown better over time, particularly after Starscream had two other mechs swapped into the gestalt as placeholders for the Aerialbots dead or too badly damaged to wait for a safe separation procedure. Once Ratchet arrived, Wheeljack finally had someone with skills and hands he trusted for the delicate, nanoscopic work of unwinding Superion at last. Windvoice last checked in on them right after Superion's separation, and both Skydive and Fireflight had been stumbling around a physical therapy room, relearning how to walk with their own legs when all their neurocircuitry had been forcibly rewired and transformed to act as gestalt limbs. Silverbolt developed a slight acrophobia – which she can only assume has passed, since any sessions with Rung are confidential.

Silverbolt seems to catch the train of her thoughts and jumps in. "He'll be fine. Some near-misses when it comes to landing. Tends to get distracted and overshoot. If he hits a building, he can take it –"

"Hey!"

"- and if he hits a would-be assassin, more power to him," Silverbolt finishes, ignoring Fireflight's pout.

There's an edge of anxiety in both Aerialbots, now. She's not sure how much of themselves and their recovery they've invested in this; she wants to shoot Ironhide a look, but she trusts him in turn.

She sets aside her own selfish reservations, and modulates her smile to a more cautious, but warm expression. "Well, hopefully this will only be a precautionary measure, for the duration of the Council session."

Ironhide coughs something that sounds like "Chrm," while pretending to clear his vents.

Her turn to ignore him. "Glad to meet you both again."

-

Two people shadowing her comes with its own issues. Fireflight is flightier than Silverbolt, with a tendency to get lost dreamily watching the sky overhead, drawn irresistibly up on his toes before snapping back to attention; she startles once or twice when she catches a glimpse of his wing fluttering in her peripheral vision. Silverbolt proves more focused, his expression drawn and serious as he scans around them. She doesn't have the spark to say anything concerning Fireflight, but the difference between them and Chromia's familiar presence and easy conversation is stark.

When the time rolls around to flag down Trypticon's representatives, she winds up bringing Lightbright and Ironhide; Starscream's schedule has him crammed into meetings for the rest of the day, which Windvoice suspects is a cover for him making arrangements for the impending arrival of multiple Council representatives tonight and tomorrow. One way or another, Trypticon's periodic hails have been Lightbright's responsibility, so it makes more sense to have her here regardless.

The shuttle that eventually drops out of the sky looks as ancient and gnarled as Trypticon himself: unpainted, rough, with only rudimentary thrusters and deeply carved markings along the hull that look almost like claw marks.

They _still_ manage to land it better than the Scavengers did.

The two mecha who emerge from the craft move strangely, their faces turned upward as though the sight of the open sky fascinates them as much as it does Fireflight. Apart from that and their red optics, the two couldn't look more dissimilar. The first bears a grey, red, and black alt mode that strikes Windvoice as eerily similar to Grimlock's – though _much_ smaller in size, with minibot proportions and subtly altered anatomy. She walks oddly balanced on her slim feet, a sickle-shaped claw angled up from the tip of each pede and feather-like blades trailing behind her in a tail. Her head darts in quick, flitting movements that remind her of Airazor.

The other mech, in muted lavender, purple, and turquoise paint, is more recognizable jet alt, her wings fanned stiffly upward. She folds her arms proudly over her cockpit, her gaze homing in on their welcoming committee with a scowl.

Then, for a split second, her eyes meet Windvoice's – and the mech flushes, her expression wide-eyed before she jerks her gaze away and snaps a jagged maskplate shut over her mouth. After that, she refuses to make eye contact, her tightly-held EM field burning with embarrassment.

The two introduce themselves as Slash and Slipstream, respectively – Slipstream noticeably quiet through her maskplate and looking anywhere except at Windvoice as Lightbright does the honors. Slash smacks her leg with her tail when Slipstream stammers through her introduction, and Slipstream jerks. They've been sent as the strongest, fiercest, and most clever of Trypticon's children (in their own words). Slash fought fifty-three competitors for the honor, while Slipstream defeated forty-six. Their Neo-Cybex is stilted but technically correct. They want more information on what the Council of Worlds offers its constituents, and to meet the Council's other representatives in person to judge their worth and strength.

Windvoice very carefully doesn't ask if that would involve facing down the other Councilors in some sort of war arena. She doesn't want to know.

When they learn that they need to pass through Metroplex to reach the gathering Council, Slash stoops so abruptly that Windvoice thinks she's going to faceplant. But her tail provides flawless balance as she transforms her helm into a tapered head with small, sharp teeth, and sniffs Metroplex's metal turf with deep distrust. After a long moment, she straights back up, her face still hooded by the jaws of her alt mode. "Very well. It must be done," Slash says, gravely, and then strides off fearlessly down Metroplex's streets.

Slipstream stutters through a farewell, her optics still fixed on Windvoice's feet as Windvoice smiles kindly at her. Then she beats a rapid retreat; her mask makes a distinctive whir as it folds back when she catches up with Slash.

Fireflight emits an odd sound. It isn't until Windvoice glances at him that she realizes he's stifling a tiny laugh. "Respectfully, ma'am Speaker – you're very pretty," he says, sheepishly, when she asks.

-

They leave Slash and Slipstream investigating their guest rooms with keen, suspicious optics. Trypticon's representatives seem to have inherited some inherent distrust in Metroplex thanks to the two Titans' old feuds, but more than that, they act…young. The hot spot at Alyon was something Starscream worked very hard to cover up during his tenure as the leader of Cybertron; thanks to that, no one ever got the chance to investigate _where_ said sparks came from before Trypticon ensconced them within his frame and claimed them as his children.

Windvoice knows for a fact that old Cybertron was in no shape to send a pulse to awaken sparks or move new sparks to the crust of the planet. Its tectonic mechanisms died long before her time. Starscream's only suggestions were nebulous, and tinted by his distinct lack of frags to give on the subject, and the best either of them came up with was that the sparks were an old, long forgotten batch, hidden somehow throughout the whole war without being annihilated and thrust back to the surface during Cybertron's incomplete reformat.

Whatever the case may be, none of Trypticon's people can be more than a couple Cybertronian years old, at the outside. They're adults - the protoform phase only lasts a few days once they're forged – but dealing with someone with under a couple hundred thousand years' life experience is a strange thing. Windvoice came from one of the final fields harvested on Caminus, and she and all her peers are still over a million years old.

Wheeljack catches up with her when she's in the middle of contemplating her comms inbox with stoic resignation. Optimus's unopened messages are still in there, along with a new, ominously pink follow-up from Elita-1. She has no idea how to respond to Elita, and her expression is grim enough that Wheeljack slows at the threshold of the exit balcony, his wheels rotating backward in visible hesitation as he raises and lowers his brow in a silent question.

She waves him over. Starscream would probably scold them for hanging around on the edge of an open balcony, but despite Fireflight's distraction he _is_ technically watching the skies, while Silverbolt remains on silent guard.

And from this height, the sunset is beautiful. Caminus hasn't seen true sunsets since before Windvoice was forged: the oldest Camien art and poetry praised the Old Cybertronian sunrises and sunsets as spectacular, glorious affairs, the brilliant red and orange and pink and gold reflected on the raw, living metal of the planet's surface. But Cybertron died, its metal dead and greyed, and its star was barely visible through the thick clouds of debris and wreckage drifting between the star and its last surviving, war-ravaged planet. Caminus's star faded to an ashen dwarf too quickly, and the faint luminosity given off by its residual thermal energy was never enough.

Maybe the sunset here isn't the same. But the light limns the sharp edges of Metroplex and Censere with gold, casting deep shadows over the streets, and in the distance the nearest cyberforest gleams as the sunlight passes through the transparent blue and green leaves of different trees, and she thinks it's one of the most beautiful sights she's ever seen.

Wheeljack sits beside her with a deep sigh, dropping heavily, as though he doesn't have the energy for a soft landing. Windvoice draws on leg up, resting an arm on it as Wheeljack leans back on his hands, his exhaustion-lined optics fixed on the sunset with a weary wistfulness in his EM field. "Long day," she says.

" _Long_ day," he agrees. "And busy."

"Never a dull moment around here."

Wheeljack angles his head toward Silverbolt and Fireflight. "Glad to see them up and about. Ratchet does good work, but it was still…rough, for a while there," he says, quietly. Fireflight gives him a tiny wave, painfully earnest, and Wheeljack waves back.

"They're your friends?" Windvoice asks. She's wondered, but never really had time to ask. Wheeljack dedicated himself to the Superion project with an intensity unmatched in his other projects, but although he joined Ratchet and the rest of the medical team in the five-day marathon surgery to finally unwind Superion into his component mechs, she's not sure how much time Wheeljack's spent with them since the physical issues were resolved.

He waggles his hand noncommittally. "As much as any Autobot is," he says, with a forced lightness in his voice. The wistfulness is still there, but stronger. In an obvious bid to change the subject, he adds, "It's good to see Jazz, too. He's dumped all the best music the humans have come up with since we left on the radio cloud, and it's a free-for-all."

How much time does Wheeljack spend relaxing with friends? Windvoice finds it hard to imagine time with Starscream as relaxing, particularly when Starscream's as keyed up as he is right now. All of them – herself, Wheeljack, Starscream, Lightbright, and Ironhide – spend more time shoveling slag and keeping the world running than is probably good for their health, but Wheeljack…

Well. She'd be lying if she said she didn't see herself in him. They both bury themselves in solving others' problems. Helping others, saving who they can save, and shelving their own issues to deal with later, always later. She worries about how much of himself Wheeljack invests in others, and how much care he receives in turn - and the irony of that worry doesn't escape her.

(But if she stops caring, what happens to everyone lost between the cracks? To mecha like Waspinator, who still curls up in his corner at Maccadam's, absurdly thrilled just to be tolerated and overlooked while he plays card games and sips plain energon alone? Who won't speak to people like Rung because he's so painfully afraid of being knocked around again?)

He hasn't asked for her help. But she doesn't know if he'd recognize when he reaches his own limit, or what his failure mode might look like, and she'd like to think that after everything, she's his friend, too. They found a comfortable rhythm during those last, tense days before Unicron arrived. "Remind me to listen to some of that. Maybe it'll help my translation program index some more idiomatic context," she says, only half-joking. Earth languages are young but rich in word play that Windvoice would normally enjoy – but the basic language module put together by Autobot forces hit noticeable snags where Neo-Cybex couldn't fully encompass the translation. Ironically, she thinks Old Cybertronian might have made a better match with its capacity for figurative language and glyph layering.

Wheeljack laughs, his optics alight with easy laughter. "Jazz is very fluent. His language subprocessor probably takes up more space than yours and mine put together. Slag, he could probably get you a complete overhaul of that translation program." Then he visibly checks himself. "But, uh. Right. Just came by to give you an update on the resonance thing. Nautica's actively monitoring and analyzing the readouts, and we can confirm that there's some funky nonsense going on." A sigh. "Unfortunately, Killmaster is giving me the run-around. I'm 80% sure he's working on the same problem, not causing it, but that's a shaky 80%. And somehow, word's gotten around to Shockwave which is…less than ideal."

"Less than ideal how?"

Wheeljack presses his hand against his face in silent despair. "He keeps popping up around corners where I least expect him, says, 'Hello, Wheeljack,' and immediately starts trying to casually coax details out of me. Do you know how hard it is for a mech that tall to pop up unexpectedly? Lately he's not even trying to hide it, so I just see a bright neon chest or knee sticking out around the corner, and have to backtrack halfway through the lab to escape him." Wheeljack looks haggard when he pulls his hand away. "Trust me. We do not want Shockwave prodding at this in his spare time; he solves all _his_ problems with black holes."

The image of Shockwave's bright pink-and-blue disembodied chest haunting Wheeljack only seems funny because she's tired. She's positive. "That _would_ be less than ideal," she agrees. And this, apparently, is a much improved, infinitely more laidback, marginally less amoral Shockwave, too. She can't imagine how bad it was before his true personality reasserted itself. Then, carefully, she rests a hand on Wheeljack's arm. "Try not to let this resonance issue eat up too much of your time. You put in so much work as it is, keeping tabs on everyone."

Wheeljack sways a little, then shakes his head. His smiling optics look dim and strained. "No worries. It's good to keep busy," he says, like an echo of himself. But when she tactfully retracts her hand he sags forward, and stares out over the city as the sky darkens rather than leaving. There's still something hanging there that he's not saying.

"Once this Council session is done, we should all try to go out for drinks. I know Nautica and Velocity have time - you could invite Jazz," she says, changing tactics. She omits the possibility that she might not be around once the Council's through with her; that's not the point. "On Caminus, we go out to socialize and wind down in casual settings together with our friends on occasion. A foreign concept, I know."

Wheeljack coughs in surprise, then snorts. "Pfft. I can take a hint," he laughs, leaning back again. "Try pulling that one on Ratchet next time, though; Drift would probably pay you to do it. Who gets to tell Starscream?"

Windvoice stands up, stretching her arms over her head as she rolls her eyes. "He's more likely show up if you do."

"Is he?"

And the way that the strange, melancholy note in Wheeljack's voice comes hand in hand with a twist of pain in his field is another hook in her chest.

Windvoice stops, looking down at the top of Wheeljack's head in concern. He catches her worried look at once, and scrambles to straighten and smooth out the jittery edge from his EM field. "Sorry. It's nothing. Just feeling my age, I guess. Think going through a CR machine counts as a second lifetime, to be honest."

She doesn't think it's nothing. She _knows_ it's not nothing. "He hasn't been talking to you," she says, low enough that Silverbolt and Fireflight won't hear.

Wheeljack winces; she catches a glimpse of the miserable expression in his optics before he lowers them. "Not the past few days. At first I thought, maybe we're both just busy, y'know. Not like there hasn't been a million things heaped on our plates since Optimus got here. Optimus won't leave me alone, and that's just -"

He breaks off and sighs. "Trying to pin Starscream down to talk won't help; just makes him contrary. Sometimes I wonder if he even wants -"

She's stopping him right there. Windvoice reaches down and helps him up; Wheeljack blinks his optics, bemusedly surprised at his abrupt change in position. "We're dealing with this now," she tells him, firmly, and marches them back inside.

Wheeljack shakes his head belatedly. "This is why I didn't mention it. You have enough to worry about without getting dragged into our – stuff. You're not responsible for fixing our slag for us," he says, still in an undertone, as Fireflight scrambles to catch up. His field is an unreadable mess, but he keeps it tight along his frame so it's not broadcasting.

"I hate to say this, but Starscream's 'stuff' tends to impact a lot more than just his personal life." That's too blunt, but it's the truth. She refuses to give up her momentum, even when Wheeljack flinches. "With the day I've had? This is nothing."

-

By the time she reaches Starscream's door, she's not even in the general vicinity of fragging around. Once Wheeljack's resilient mask crumbles, she can see for herself just how bad it's gotten. Silverbolt and Fireflight are incredulous when she tells them they can't come inside; apparently, Starscream's on their unofficial loud alarm sirens list. Vortex looks up from his slouched post by the door and immediately his helicopter blades fan up as the seething edge of her EM field hits him. His visor widens and she hears something pop behind his maskplate as she sails past.

"Holy slag. Please tell me this is it. The big one," she hears him say to Wheeljack, weirdly enthusiastic. "She's doing it. Right here, right now. Aemula endura prop-"

The door thankfully shuts before she has to hear the end of that. The less she knows about how Vortex's mind works, the happier she thinks she'll be.

(As if she can afford the luxury of that kind of thing when Starscream carries the kind of damage he does.)

As she anticipated, Starscream's 'meeting' on his schedule was with himself. She wonders how often he used to do that to have time to speak to Bumblebee alone – and how often he forgot to care about hiding it.

He received her ping, at least, so he knew she was coming. His office is in worse shape now: untouched energon cubes scattered around, his desk an unsorted avalanche of work supplies, and a single datapad wedged at a sixty-degree angle in the wall where he managed to crack the metal with his throw. Starscream himself waits standing behind his desk, shoulders hunched and wings pre-emptively flared so that he raises his head with a perfectly framed glower. "What's that? Wanted to talk about your little soiree with Elita today?" he says, lightly, through clenched teeth.

She won't rise to his gambit. "No," she says, without denying it, and keeps walking until she's right in front of him, the desk between them like a wall. "You're neglecting Wheeljack. You're not sleeping _or_ fueling. You're making desperate moves. And you _keep glancing at the wall like you think I can't see_."

She times it flawlessly, catching Starscream in the middle of a restless peek, his purple optics flashing as they slant toward the wall with the new datapad display. He rips his glare back toward her with a snarl that's almost desperate. "I'm fine," he sneers, digging fresh claw marks into the back of another unfortunate datapad. It would be more intimidating if he weren't trembling, almost imperceptibly. "What are you going to do? Kick me out?"

She should. In some ways, it never mattered that Bumblebee was real, and alive; it mattered that Starscream thought himself insane for years and never dealt with the mental repercussions of that, or the millennia of rage and fear and paranoia that drove him to the brink. She's still not sure how close he came to going after Bumblebee in a retaliatory attempt to keep _anyone_ from being close enough to know his mind, or his secrets. They couldn't risk Rung, when Starscream self-destructs the way that he does.

Optimus was right to question her ability to lead, when she lets Starscream play the integral role that he does.

But he's wrong, because she's too stubborn to let Starscream act like he's too ruined to find a new way forward. Somehow, impossibly, he hasn't fragged it all up yet. So she's not giving up on him.

"No," she says, flattening her hands on the table. "I'm going to ask you what you need to make things better."

"Optimus's head on a platter," he shoots back. He stares at her hands like they're covered in open rust sores.

She rolls her eyes. "Something actionable. And _not murder_."

"I want you to know how much it grieves me that you don't consider something as simple as that is 'actionable,'" Starscream says. When she continues to stare him dead in the eye, unimpressed, he folds his arms. "What. Stop looking at me like that." After a few moments, he tears his gaze away again, like he can't bear the eye contact. Something flickers across his face as she waits him out, and eventually his mouth screws up as his arms clench tighter and tighter over his own chest. His balled-up fists are a mess of scraped paint and dents.

"It's ridiculous anyway," he says, tightly.

"But it's bad enough that you're not telling Wheeljack," she counters. A fresh burst of anger pinches his expression, but she's not going to _not_ bring Wheeljack up. "Don't give me that look. If you were talking to him and processing things in a healthy way, we wouldn't be awkwardly standing here right now."

Another contortion, another grimace, another wave of some incomprehensible, Starscream-brand emotion. "Don't you have better things to do than _nanny_ me, you – you meddler?" he snarks, trying to deflect one last time.

Oh, _for the love of Solus_. "Yes, actually. But no, I don't. Just tell me what's wrong and let's get this over with, so we can get back to arguing with each other like civilized people," Windvoice says, exasperated. "I need your help. I need you _here,_ with us. And Wheeljack deserves better than to think you don't love him."

She might as well have shot him. Starscream jolts back and then jerks to a stop, his expression horribly blank and his dark face drained of color so rapidly he looks half-dead. Without a word he looks to the side, his optics glassy as he stares at the wall, unseeing.

"Call Wheeljack. I'm only explaining this once," he says, voice a rasp.

She pings Wheeljack without lifting a finger. She's not sure if Starscream can handle her moving right now. "Done."

Half a klik later, the door slides open and Wheeljack comes in, his huddled shoulders an unhappy mirror of Starscream's posture earlier. Vortex tries to hiss something at him before the door closes behind him, but Windvoice quite honestly doesn't _want_ to catch it.

Starscream's gone oddly expressionless, leaning one hand on his desk to prop himself upright. "Seal the room," he mutters, tapping one of the screens set into his beleaguered desk, and something _clunk_ s in the walls and the heavy door.

Well, he's either going to murder them, or tell the truth. It's a toss-up, really.

Wheeljack stops short of the desk and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "All good in here?" he says, stiltedly, his vocalizer sounding choked. He clears his throat, but the hesitation lingers as he doesn't quite look at Starscream.

Starscream absorbs this for five seconds before saying, "Megatron."

Even knowing what Windvoice knows now, it still hits Wheeljack faster. He stiffens. "Where?"

"Down below. He -" Starscream gestures aimlessly, then lets his hand fall against his side "- wanders." His voice cracks. "He always ruins **_everything_.** "

He can't seem to repress his field anymore. It's like her last confrontation with him, but worse: all that bristling, spark-wrenching fear Starscream redirected at Windvoice before now has a much more obvious source. "Is it like Bumblebee?" she asks, keeping her voice as steady as she can when Starscream's on the verge of a panic attack and broadcasting it on all sensors.

Starscream snaps. "I don't _know!_ You think I haven't asked myself that?!" He presses one hand to his chest, digging in with his fingers with a wild look in his eye before shoving away from the desk and waving his hand in a wide sweep. "I need to concentrate on perpetually saving you idiots from yourselves, not – more of this!"

Then he wrenches to a stop again, and there's a long silence filled only by his uneven, struggling ventilation systems as Windvoice tries to come up with something to say that won't send him flying.

Wheeljack's first step is cautious. He walks around the desk, slowly, and waits another minute, his expression hidden from Windvoice's angle, before reaching up and turning Starscream with a hand on his arm. Starscream turns, rigid but without protest, and Wheeljack gently tugs until he can rest both hands on Starscream's upper arms. "Hey, hey. This alright?" he asks, quietly.

Starscream collapses in stages. "Nothing is alright," he mumbles, muffled against Wheeljack's neck as he sags. Even when Wheeljack's arms come up and wrap around him, tracing soothing patterns in the space between his wings, Starscream's wings keep twitching up and down in some kind of corrupted, cringing flight response.

Windvoice turns away for a moment, so that there's some semblance of privacy when Wheeljack presses his mask to the side of Starscream's neck. Then he pulls back, his hands finding Starscream's face and, and presses his forehead against Starscream's.

Seeing Starscream soft and vulnerable digs into her in a wide variety of ways. When they ease off, the worst of Starscream's panic abated, Windvoice shifts slowly so that she doesn't interrupt their gradual return to the present. "Any theories?" she murmurs, as Wheeljack strokes the underside of Starscream's jaw.

"Best one I got? Weird space shit. Which we already knew about," he says, shooting her only a brief look. Tangled up in the exhaustion and relief in a pulse of gratitude. "We need Brainstorm if we can't get Killmaster, but honestly? Both would be better."

-

"Plotting a murder?" Vortex asks, brightly, when they finally emerge. He looks disturbingly excited to see them.

" _No_ ," she, Wheeljack, and Starscream all say, in unison.

Vortex pumps his fist with an air of unholy glee and joins Silverbolt and Fireflight in the train with a skip in his step. " _Finally_."

"It would have to be Megatron, huh," Wheeljack mutters, as they head out. When Windvoice looks askance on him, he shakes his head. "Nothing. Just understand a lot better why he hasn't been talking."

\---

_Soon we will be strangers._

_No, we can never be that. Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy._

_We will be dangerous acquaintances with a history._

\- [Hanif of Vos](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/303515-soon-we-will-be-strangers-no-we-can-never-be)

\---

"Don't ask me," Brainstorm says, in remarkably good spirits. "By all accounts it doesn't make any sense."

Killmaster grunts. With his massive frame wedged into the root corridor, there's not much room to maneuver. He has to crouch to fit.

"Even if Luna-F _was_ the problem – which I'm not admitting to! In any way, shape, or form! – it doesn't make sense that you'd be seeing the phantom menace down here. Megatron. Sorry, slip of the tongue," Brainstorm continues to babble. Nautica is humming cheerfully as the two of them shred one of the machines she set up with Wheeljack and put it back together in some new configuration that has Wheeljack quietly setting up an impromptu blast shield at the perimeter. "Functionist Cybertron should still be right where the old Cybertron used to be, about a bajillion light years away from here. Roughly. Give or take. If anything, any quantum ghost Megs would be floating around in the middle of nowhere."

Hands pressed over his face in melodramatic anguish, Starscream makes a noise that's rude on both Caminus and Cybertron. His mood has sauntered downward as they've accumulated more people, and he's now in the middle of a true sulk. In an ideal world, Windvoice thinks he'd have ignored this ghostly Megatron until he erased it from existence through sheer force of will, just to avoid communicating the problem to others like an adult. Now, with Windvoice, Wheeljack, Brainstorm, Nautica, and Killmaster all up to speed, and Silverbolt and Fireflight in a state of general incomprehension but present, he's utterly distraught. He shrieked at Vortex to find something useful to do above ground, but it hasn't helped his temper.

"No," Killmaster says to Brainstorm, absently. He hasn't glanced at any of Wheeljack and Nautica's machines since Brainstorm mysteriously succeeded in dragging him down here; Windvoice gets the distinct impression that he's only here because he wants to be here. He balances his wand on its point and then paces backward so that it stands on its own, his face screwed up in a vaguely irritated frown.

Silence ensues for thirty seconds. When Killmaster doesn't elaborate, Wheeljack pinches his brow. "Go on, explain. We're all audials over here."

"Don't," Brainstorm advises. "He's sensitive about these things. A chronic allergy to straight answers. _Horrible_ hives, absolutely everywhere -"

"What setting did you have it on?" Killmaster interrupts. One heavy claw strokes his chin as he crouch-walks around the faintly vibrating wand, his jagged brows knitted together.

Brainstorm throws up his hands. Nautica dives to avoid an innocuous-looking screwdriver that goes flying in her direction and ricochets off the wall. "The shooty zappy pocket dimension magic wand one. Modified slightly to aim at the universe immediately adjacent, instead of your personal torture dungeon. Easy, by the way, for someone of _my_ level of expertise -"

Killmaster stares at Brainstorm, flatly unimpressed. "Then you did not just phase this moon between universal strands. You also simultaneously translocated it from that point in space to _here_ ," he says, slowly, as though he's not sure whether Brainstorm has a fully functional processor. He folds his arms and narrows his eyes as the wand begins to tremble and crackle with green light. "And like already calls to like."

As one, they all look toward Brainstorm.

Brainstorm shrugs. "Hey, don't look at me. At least half of what he says sounds like magical mumbo-jumbo. Now, give me a briefcase, a fourth wall, and some chronometric subparticle accelerators, and _then_ we'd be cooking with petrol."

"That is problematic, yes." Killmaster clicks his claws and thrusts a hand toward Wheeljack. "Your readings. Now."

Wheeljack glances at the screen of his scanner, but doesn't hand it over. When Killmaster squints and slowly raises his hand, claws poised to snap again with ominous intent, Wheeljack jabs a finger at him. "No. No teleporting other scientists' property. Basic. Lab. Etiquette. We've talked about this." Then, as Killmaster folds his arms with a displeased grimace and a griping rumble in his engines, Wheeljack does a double take at his screen. "Hoo boy. You're right. This is a time _and_ space problem, isn't it?"

"It is?" Windvoice says, weakly. Momentum carried her this far, but it's nearly midnight and she ran out of ways to contribute to the scientific discussion at hand about an hour ago, when Brainstorm snapped his fingers and somehow summoned Killmaster in a cloud of billowing pink smoke to join them. Now she's sitting against the wall nursing a minor headache, all propriety gone out the window, with Starscream sprawled out in his sulk on one side and Silverbolt on the other. Even though she can't really add much, she feels obligated to stick around until the scientists reach a consensus.

Wheeljack looks sympathetic. "The Functionist universe is an artificial splinter of our own. Put it this way: other universes exist. Most of them developed naturally based on any number of a billion variable factors since the big bang kicked it all off. But if I understood Nautica correctly, the Functionist universe only diverges from our own based on one significant socio-temporal factor – and that's not a lotta difference, in the grand scheme of things."

"In all the ways that matter, there _is_ no difference," Killmaster says. He flicks the space wand and it emits a throbbing chime that makes everyone wince. "The fundamental forces and supersymmetrical string resonance match almost perfectly. That is the only reason you were able to so ham-handedly brute force the moon – if any factor had differed by even a fraction between universes, you would have ripped a hole in the fabric of reality."

Starscream groans, digging a knuckle into his temple. "Just. Peachy."

Windvoice has no idea what an Earth fruit has to do with this, but she understands the sentiment completely.

Brainstorm rolls his optics. "Well, excuuuse me. I _had_ paradox locks on my briefcase to prevent stuff like this. It wasn't until Rewind shot Megatron on the assembly line that our timeline started to collapse, and the Functionist one started to replace it."

"My hero," Starscream mumbles. He's starting to get snarky again, for the first time in hours. Uh oh.

"But Whirl figured he hated the Functionists more than he hated everything else – fair enough – and he plugged a spark from Luna-1 into Megatron's body. Presto." Nautica twirls the retrieved screwdriver in a way which explains nothing whatsoever to demonstrate her point, with a smile as she frames her face with a rectangle formed of her forefingers and thumbs. "Timeline back on track."

"And the Functionist one split off to become its own universe instead of just _not existing_ , like any normal time paradox should've," Brainstorm finishes, with a huff.

Windvoice raises two fingers to cut into Brainstorm's impending rant. She's not sure how much more her head can take. "An assembly line means that you found Megatron's frame in a cold construction facility, yes? Then that original person that Rewind shot was never 'Megatron' at all."

Starscream barks a sharp, bitter laugh. "Just some poor slagger who never got a chance to defrost," he says, letting his head loll to the side.

"Who probably would never have started the war in the first place. Statistically speaking." Nautica taps the screwdriver against her chin, thoughtful. "I wonder what their name was."

"And this is _exactly_ why I invented paradox locks!" Brainstorm shouts at the ceiling, clutching the air with his hands. Then he blinks. "…I played myself."

Killmaster shakes his head in silent disappointment.

"Anyway. So we've got Megatron not as stuck as we thought in a universe that's basically this one's conjoined, entirely redundant twin, with the smelted remains of that universe's Luna-2 stirred into our new planet and a potential connection on the temporal-quantum level due to the fact that Brainstorm failed to follow proper magic wand safety protocol." Wheeljack vents deeply. "I miss regular science. Hate when I have to mess around with time travel."

"But isn't this fascinating?" Nautica insists, folding her hands together with a keen glint in her optic. "Not to mention the dramatic irony of a _Functionist_ universe being redundant -"

And then they're off to the races. Windvoice leans her helm back against the wall while they get to it, her mind drifting as she tries to massage the tension out of her temples. Falling asleep here won't do her any good; her transformation seams will only be stiff in the morning. A thought occurs to her, on the verge of nonsensical, and a tiny chuckle escapes her.

Starscream sits up to glare at her. There's no heat in it; he looks tired but droll. "I know that look. What."

It's a shame. She likes Starscream best when he's like this: ironic, sarcastic but not cruel about it, with a conspiratorial smile that seems to include her rather than mock her. The kind of person she could banter with, meet wit for wit, without it devolving into something mean and hostile. Yet every time she catches that rare glimpse of camaraderie in him, to encourage and meet him on equal ground, she grasps too hard and he slips away, back to his old ways.

Well. He did ask. He's just not going to like the answer. "Just wondering how Luna-1 might feel to know that one of its children was alive," she says, with a benign smile.

Starscream stares at her, utterly, comically betrayed. "Why must you say these things with the express purpose of hurting me?" he asks, turning up his nose. But the spark is still there, that irrepressible, reluctant humor in his field as he plays along. "You -"

Then he freezes. And stares past her. And his fear drenches her sensors like ice water. "You," he finishes, every inch of him clamped down.

Windvoice turns.

At the same time, a tall grey mech built like a tank turns away from the wall, frowning at Starscream. His frame is transparent; she can see the texture of Metroplex's roots through the scrollwork engraved on the mech's chest. Yellow banded caution paint stripes his arms and legs, and there's a power drill strapped to his arm that's the size of Windvoice's waist. Red optics sweep the room, widening a fraction when they absorb just how many people are crammed into the hall. By the time they reach Killmaster, Megatron's brows have risen so high they're nearly in orbit.

Then he frowns at Starscream again, like he doesn't recognize him. The projection opens his mouth and attempts to say something, but no sound emerges.

 _Oh_.

"Good news. I see him too," she tells Starscream. She feels it's important to establish this, before Starscream can panic. Everyone else is turning, too – Silverbolt with a yelp, leveling a useless gun on the transparent Megatron – and a pitched pressure snaps into the air as every Autobot in the room tenses and Killmaster goes perfectly, ominously still.

"That doesn't qualify as good news!" Starscream insists, shrill. There's more dread in his eyes now than when he was staring up at Unicron's vast, hungry maw. When she reaches out to try to grab his shoulder, he just keeps backing away, shaking his head.

Then he shrieks as something white tears through his legs from behind. He stumbles and trips over his own feet in the scramble to get away. She can hear the integrated guns in his arms online, and hastily reaches down to help him back up, keeping her hands away from the hooded weapons as she catches his arm. Wheeljack shakes off his stillness and walks over to join her on Starscream's other side. "Oh slag, a - a gremlin!" Starscream pants, optics wide and petrified, clutching Wheeljack's arm like a lifeline as he stares at the white figure that dashes and skids to a stop beside Megatron.

Nautica drops the screwdriver, pushing her way between Killmaster and the wand. Her voice is full of excitement. "That's not a gremlin, that's –"

"Tailgate!" someone calls, hoarsely. Killmaster hisses, the overlapping mandibles of his mouth clattering, as Cyclonus pelts around the curve of the corridor. His expression is distraught.

He makes the sharp turn; Whirl doesn't quite make it. Whirl slams into the wall with a muffled 'Oof!' and pushes off, shaking his gangly legs out and then immediately running into Cyclonus's back when Cyclonus slams to a stop. He recovers and jabs a claw at Tailgate. "Not! So fast!" he says, wheezing slightly, and only then blinks and glances around the room. "Huh. Anyone else here see dead people?"

"Nemesis," Killmaster says, cordially. The effect, with the lime green light of the wand crackling around him in a halo, is admittedly very dramatic.

Starscream buries his face in his hands. "I think I'd prefer to be hallucinating. It would be less _stupid_ ," he mutters.

Tailgate taps Megatron and Megatron glances down with a milder expression as Tailgate mouths something inaudible to him. For someone recently atomized, Tailgate looks like he's doing well – translucent, but otherwise unharmed. He keeps sneaking looks at Cyclonus, his blue visor bright. Cyclonus stands very still, his expression a mask once more as he drinks in the sight.

Something pokes her shoulder. Windvoice twitches – none of her sensors picked up someone behind her - and glances back, half expecting another transparent figure.

Jazz adjusts his visor, his smile wry and apologetic. "Yo. Got a minute?"

-

Starscream launches into a compulsory rant about spying, at the end of which he announces he needs to lay down. He does so, flings his arm over his optics, and then refuses to communicate except in extraordinarily expressive vents for the next hour. Tailgate fizzles and vanishes before he's finished, but Megatron flickers, then stabilizes as Killmaster retunes something on his wand. The garish crackle of the wand settles into a steady glow. The transparent image continues to frown, cutting out and reappearing halfway across the room to try to speak to Nautica and Brainstorm once before subsiding. It's hard to tell how much Megatron can see and hear on his end, but Windvoice suspects it's not much.

Jazz nods along agreeably until Starscream runs out of steam, his mouth trembling with repressed laughter, which he covers by clearing his vocalizer. "I think you've mellowed him," he tells her and Wheeljack cheerfully. "He didn't try to shoot me even once. Impressive."

Starscream raises his middle finger.

"You told me to look out below," Windvoice says. She's less concerned than Starscream is about Jazz spying on Metroplex. Mostly because he came to her with that heads up, and apparently hasn't passed on what he witnessed to Optimus yet, but partially because she's too loopy with tiredness to worry too much. She feels like she flew a race course while doing loops the whole time. Having Jazz join them amuses her tired processor to no end.

Jazz shrugs as he lounges back against the wall, arms folded under his bumper. "T'be fair, seeing Starscream come down here to glare at a transmission of Megatron seemed like something to be concerned about. But after a few minutes of watching him shriek and demand answers and get no response…pretty obvious that it wasn't part of some elaborate plan to conspire with Megatron right under your nose. So. Yeah. Tried to toss a hint Wheeljack's way, too, but I've been playing catch up."

Windvoice snorts. "I don't blame you. The only reason I'm not more concerned about all this is because it's happened before."

"At least this time we can all see the projection," Wheeljack says.

"That _does_ make things easier," Nautica agrees.

"I hate all of you," Starscream mumbles. He peels his arm away from his eyes, grimaces when he sees Megatron's image pacing along the corridor, and covers his optics again with a hiss. "Make him stop looking at me!"

Megatron seems more preoccupied with Killmaster than Starscream, to be honest. Given how many times Starscream's seen the apparition these past few days, Windvoice is surprised Megatron didn't make the connection to his old second-in-command – but Starscream does look very different these days. And Starscream's genuinely distressed (and exploiting it for all its worth), so with Wheeljack distracted by helping Brainstorm and Nautica figure out what Killmaster's wand does, Windvoice blandly pats him on the head. "There, there," she says.

Finally, Wheeljack emerges from the group huddle and comes over. He leaves Brainstorm and Nautica clustered around a half-refurbished terminal. Killmaster rebuffs their inquiries with disinterested noises, and at one point picks Brainstorm up bodily by the back of his neck and deposits him out of reach of the wand. "Good news or bad news first?" Wheeljack asks.

"Bad," Windvoice says.

"It's gonna take some doing before we can fully control for the resonance effect." He scratches the underside of his audial with the end of a stylus. "Luna-F's presence is the part of it, but we can't exactly remove it now. This is, ironically, a solid Killmaster on the scale of weird space science from Jetfire to Killmaster. I estimate it could take months for us to figure this out – so since we're all working on it, give it a couple hours and we'll probably have a full set up to monitor it properly."

By now, she's used to Wheeljack's brisk, efficient time estimates. "And the good news?"

Wheeljack hesitates, his gaze shooting to where Whirl is curled up beside Cyclonus to awkward pat him on the back. "Tailgate's alive."

"Do not," Cyclonus croaks. It's the first thing he's said since Tailgate vanished again. He doesn't even look up from the floor. "Do not give me hope."

He's probably been chasing ghosts as long as Starscream has.

Wheeljack sets his shoulders and soldiers on. "He underwent a spark energy transfer and a separate spark spasm a couple years ago, yeah?" When Cyclonus continues to stare blankly at the spot where Tailgate was and Whirl just clacks a claw at him, impatient, he goes on. "That, on top of being quantumly duplicated by the _Lost Light_ 's engines – ask Nautica, not me – primed him to be affected. No one else has been affected that we know of. We're seeing flashes of both of him and Megatron because they belong here, in this universe. Tailgate's gone the other direction and is probably having a pit of a time, but he still originated here. If we can get a handle on the resonance, we can bring him back."

Cyclonus remains completely motionless. Windvoice can read the willpower it takes for him to hold himself that still, to carefully contain any emotional response and deny himself any sense of relief. Whirl bristles with more outward skepticism; he points a claw at his narrowed optic, then jabs both prongs at Wheeljack.

But there's something else to consider, besides good news. "And Megatron," Windvoice finishes.

Wheeljack winces. "That's something to consider, yes -" he starts, cautiously.

Starscream sits bolt upright. " _No_."

"Star -"

Starscream cuts him off, shoving himself up onto his feet and whirling away, his optic ablaze with fury. "You know where he belongs? In a grave!"

Killmaster shakes his head at Starscream's shriek. Nautica stops, her wrench pressed to her chest as she looks over worriedly, while Brainstorm pauses over the terminal without looking up.

With a vent, Wheeljack finishes. "Maybe he's doing good over there. Slag knows I wouldn't wish a planet full of Functionists ascendant on _anyone_. But he's still technically evading justice and responsibility for his actions here."

"No!"

Now he's working himself up. Jazz is still right here, and apparently Windvoice does have to care about that, and how this looks. "Starscream -"

He rounds on her. "If you think things are bad now, you have _no. Idea._ How bad he can make them," he says, voice abruptly hushed. He glares angrily at Jazz, who raises his hands and backs off a step.

It's starkly similar to how he talks about Optimus Prime – as though he and Megatron are unstoppable forces that have hung over Starscream like a sword all his life. But with Megatron, it's more personal. Starscream dislikes Optimus, but he's scared of Megatron, on a visceral level.

This is trauma. Millions of years of war, trapped in a frame his spark despised, and it was this that hurt Starscream the most.

Windvoice reaches out and very gently, very slowly, puts her hands on Starscream's shoulders. He watches her, optics squinted in suspicion, but doesn't flinch when she makes contact. "And he won't," she promises, meeting his eyes with implacable sincerity.

Then she adds, to Wheeljack, "Concentrate on Tailgate first. If we agree on nothing else, we need to bring him home."

That's not her suggestion, as Windvoice; that's her instruction, as Speaker. Yes, she has to consider Megatron's political and legal standing, as Neo-Cybertron's leader – no, she's not going to drag _that_ knot of wires out in the middle of everything else. There is a _limit_ , for Solus's sake.

Wheeljack nods, and heads back to the huddle.

Whirl tugs on Cyclonus's wrist. "Come on, let's get out of the way. We can stand on top of a dark skyscraper, broodily surveying our domain like a broody costumed human -"

Cyclonus shakes Whirl off and draws his sword. He drives it into the floor – Windvoice cringes, on Metroplex's behalf – and then sits with his back ramrod-straight against the blade. "No," he says, eloquently.

Whirl throws up his claws in defeat. "Fine! I guess we live here now." He crosses his legs as he drops with a huff, folding his arms to match Cyclonus.

Wheeljack is preoccupied, now. And Windvoice knows for a fact that her question is silly, and that she _really_ needs to go to sleep.

But Starscream is here, conveniently enough, and familiar enough with Wheeljack's ways that she might as well ask. "The scale goes from Jetfire to Killmaster? What about Shockwave?" she asks, in a murmur.

Starscream looks down at her with a bleak expression, then stares off into the distance. "We don't talk about Shockwave."

\---

_[He] will resurrect you…Your flesh will be replaced with steel, your nerves with wire, your thoughts with electricity…_

_But I will remember for you, my daughter._

\- Shrike of the Lazarus Brigade, <<[Mortal Engines](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/287861.Mortal_Engines): A comedy wherein humans fundamentally misunderstand the function and structure of Titans while engaging in fictionalized Municipal Darwinism meant to deconstruct historical human imperialism; featuring no less than two explosions and one catastrophic meltdown of a human-grade WMD due to a failure to follow proper particle cannon facility OSHA guidelines; costarring an biological abomination reconstructed with cybernetic enhancements in a mockery of true technorganic life with a strange fascination for his adopted organic offspring>>, trans. Skullcruncher of the War World _Reaver_

Featured reviews:

_The dog dies at the end. Awful. Do not recommend. 0/5 stars._

\- Thundercracker of Kaon, renowned Earth screenwriter and 'dog'-owner

\---

When the emissary's vessel arrives, Scorponok confines Sari to her habsuite.

She fights him, of course, stamping her feet and pouting until he scoops her up and physically removes her from the bridge. She insists that this is "unfair" and "cheating!" and "height-based discrimination against minibots," and "the violence inherent in the system," all through the short trip to her quarters, before he closes and locks the door from the outside.

At some point, he really needs to explain to her that that is not, in fact, what those words mean.

A few members of his crew struggle to marshal their expressions when Scorponok returns to the bridge - relief and disgusted, intermingled. He seats himself with a cold, reproving stare for each of them, waits for each recalcitrant mech to flinch, and then returns his attention to the signals from the approaching ripple in compressed space that heralds one of the Grand Architect's terrifying ships.

Even now, after the incredible success of Sari's development, the disgust runs deeper than anticipated. Some of them were concerned after the initial experiments resulted in organic flesh infecting a worldsweeper and growing on the walls, contaminating every experiment in the old flagship - body horror of the purest kind. Now, instead, they fear the fact that Sari is very much not Rat-a-tat-tat, in any way. She does not recognize any of Rat-a-tat-tat's former coworkers and acquaintances; she needed to be retaught how to access weapons systems and provided learning feeds on the basics of the Decepticon cause. Teaching her has been Scorponok's lone source of amusement in the otherwise unpleasant muddle of cleaning up after the Infinite project. She's something wholly new, her spark reforged by its exposure to her hybridized organic CNA into someone with a new consciousness.

A new soul.

But if they couldn't control themselves, they wouldn't still be permitted on board his flagship. Rat-a-tat-tat volunteered. He knew the risks going into the extraction procedure. And Sari has shown no signs of inheriting Rat-a-tat-tat's unfortunate predilection for self-termination.

Only Flame remains truly loyal to the project. Scorponok might even have recruited him across faction lines if the Autobots hadn't already condemned Flame to Garrus-9 for his revolutionary work in transplanting sparks on Babu Yar, and stripped him of his badge for what they called war crimes.

War crimes? Pah. Babu Yar was a glorious time to be alive: the whole planet a lush hotbed of scientific advancement and experimentation, the on-going war merely a side show compared to the flourishing game of espionage, illicit collaboration, and one-upmanship thriving behind the scenes. They had none of Kimia's regulations, or direction, and it was magnificent. Hundreds of scientists on both sides brought together, leaking secrets and trading and building on each other's work in a feverish orgy of discovery into which such small, trifling things as morals and ethics never seemed to quite matter enough to _stop_. The results, terrifying as they were, could not compare to the voracious thrill of the _experiments._ The science. Scorponok hardly scratched the surface before the whole thing imploded in the wake of Gideon's Glue, but many of the mecha who made infamous names for themselves in the experimental wards and interrogation units eventually found themselves acquired for his team once the Grand Architect gave him free rein.

Flame was one of those on Babu Yar who dabbled as a double agent in the tangled cross-factional web. Unfortunately, by trading secrets to both his fellow Autobots as well as Decepticons, he won himself a place on the List as well as in the Aequitas trials. Sold out by an aemula on both sides, as it happens. But Shockwave brought them together in a stroke of casual, uncaring genius, as was always his wont, and now Flame works as Scorponok's diligent right hand. The spark extraction and transplant chambers, of his own design and improved by Scorponok's organic research, were already being replicated in preparation for future volunteers and other Decepticons forcibly recruited for the future of their kind.

Scorponok expected to have to track down the scattered, pathetic remnants of the Decepticons in the wake of Megatron's ignominious defection in order to fuel the machines. But now the Grand Architect has handed them the coordinates of what appears, on long-range scanners, to be the location of several thousands of Decepticons, consorting with neutrals and Autobots on some backwater planet. The Architect claimed that there would be more spark energy within the planet itself, but Scorponok's primary focus remains the Decepticons at hand. They can deal with the task of sorting out this rumored spark energy in due time.

Now, they simply need to deal with the Architect's emissary.

The corkscrew-shaped starcraft phases out of compressed space with only a flicker of pale blue light to mark its arrival. The sudden, silent appearance of such a massive craft drawing alongside the worldsweeper is only as disturbing as one allows it to be; Warworlds are larger. The cruiser glides past without slowing, the discs of its main structure spinning frictionlessly on its axis - and then vanishes again, back to the impossible geometries and subtle, in-between places that comprise compressed space.

Scorponok grimaces as the airlock belatedly registers a foreign presence. The emissary successfully beamed on board, without bothering with trivial things like airlocks or a physical shuttle or his security measures. He rises from his seat, with a curt nod to Flame so that he falls in step beside him.

The guards outside the airlock look on with fearful optics as the inner door rotates open of its own accord. Impatiently, Scorponok brushes them out of the way and waits, arms folded and expression impassive and unimpressed, as the Architect's emissary finishes inviting herself onto his ship.

The emissary arrives flanked by familiar faces – two spike-riddled mecha with alien upgrades, vaguely Cybertronian to the naked optic, named Ferrum and Ancilla. [Tool] and [Servant], if one scans the subglyphs correctly. Pathetic. Scorponok's worked with them over the past few years. They are the main enforcers of the laboratories and facilities that housed the Infinite project, in charge of security, the punishment and silencing of defectors, and the disposal of compromised stock. Their modifications make their exact fighting capabilities difficult to analyze, and though Scorponok nominally oversees the entire project, they have never answered to him. On the infrequent occasions they've foisted themselves onto one of his operations, they've carried out the Architect's instructions with mechanical efficiency.

Rarely – very rarely – they express flickers of frustration, or share a bland workplace humor that hints at the existence of a sentient mind behind the slavish obedience.

With Emissary Bellica in the room, they're little more than drones. Scorponok half expects one of them to start drooling in the organic fashion; their expressions are contemptibly vacant. They carry blasters with a familiar insignia emblazoned on the side. The Emissary herself enters in a palanquin that hovers on a beam of light, its rippling forcefield panels concealing her from view. Small favors. The Emissaries are not quite as repulsive as the Grand Architect himself, but that's not saying much.

But she is singular. Among their kind, that seems to matter. The palanquin is a mark of status granted to her by the Grand Architect; those with only a singular face and pronoun are usually scorned and denied access to the technologies needed to abstain from walking altogether. Being stripped of even one face is unspeakably humiliating.

Scorponok has made a study of their ways - first to pass the time when he, Flame, and the others were first taken by the Grand Architect, while their minds were being flayed and corroded and laced with traps and leashes for the Architect to draw on at will. One might say he had some personal interest in understanding them. But the Grand Architect is something worse - something that defies all the conventions of his own species - and his Emissaries draw the ire of their fellows by rising above their station. They seem to thrive on the hatred.

Scorponok always did enjoy a challenge. When he slips this leash, he's going to greatly enjoy finding out what makes the Grand Architect tick.

Emissary Bellica gestures with a slim tendril that rustles through the panels of her forcefields like they're folds of fabric. Even now, she's phased partially out of sync with the rest of the universe: nothing can touch the Emissaries unless they will it, or they leave their palanquins. "We go to the template. Now," she commands, her voice a caustic, sibilant drone.

He steels himself for a show of impotent rebellion. The show matters. "We need to rendezvous with the rest of our fleet first, and assess how we wish to approa-"

Everything collapses to a piercing star of pain, directly behind his parietal processor.

When the Emissary slackens the leash, Scorponok's on the floor. He tastes something burnt out - multiple fuses blown, somewhere. Flame was hit as well, and is curled up in a ball with one optic popped into a hundred fragments. Bellica punished everyone in the ship indiscriminately.

"Did I ask you, slave?" she says, idly.

He controls his expression behind his visor as he stiffly gets back to his feet. A glimpse of the Emissary's mask glitters through the forcefields: an elegant metal face, the tiny plates of blue and silver etched into a serene, judgmental expression, with a horrific mouth that seems to open on a yawning abyss.

Scorponok bows his head, and waits. After Emissary Bellica glides past, the ends of her indigo blue tendrils trailing behind the palanquin, taunting him, he spits the energon from his mouth without changing his expression.

"All of the ship's sensors are on her," Flame spits, wiping his mouth with a dark, sullen fury in his remaining optic. "The longer she's stays, the closer we get."

"Good."

Soon, Scorponok muses, they're going to learn how to kill a Quintesson.

Soon enough.

-

In the vents above, a small figure creeps back, dark red eyes wide.

Shaking, Sari swallows behind her mask, and follows the enemy as it heads deeper into the ship.

\---

_Been up and down that road_

_Way up, way up, oh no_

_We gon' burn the whole house down_

\- [AJR](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozbnTScWups)

\---

After Optimus brushes him off for the tenth time, Rodimus…takes the hint.

He wants to tell himself that he's past the point of chasing Optimus's approval, or living up to that impossible standard, or proving himself in his own right, or - something.

Yeah, it's a load of garbage. He heads out to the shuttle field, _not_ sulking, and boosts himself up onto one of the Rodpod 2.0's unfinished, suspended engines to lay back, stare up at the stars, and brood.

Still not sulking.

Just. Contemplating.

He doesn't know how to get it back. That happiness. That synergy, the sense that even if they weren't making _progress_ (quote-unquote), he and his crew were together. Whole.

He doesn't think Neo-Cybex has a word for it. Humans call it a family.

Now he's stuck here, his remaining crew scattered and doing their own things, too busy to leave. It's always 'not now,' or 'after we figure out how to not blow up the sun when we activate these engines,' or 'maybe in a little bit.' And all the while Getaway's vanishing into the distance, along with everyone else who thought Rodimus wasn't enough, and Megatron's a world away just like he always probably wanted, and the bitter knot of betrayal in Rodimus's chest hardens into scar tissue. He's too short-tempered, too bitter, too snappish, too impatient, but he doesn't know how to fix himself. He can't recapture what he used to be in those weird, wonderful days where everything felt bright and real and vividly _alive_ , even in the darkest of times.

Ultra Magnus is days away from handing in his notice, and signing back on with Optimus. Drift might drop everything to go, but if Ratchet's embedded himself here, part of Drift will be looking back, too. Rodimus can tell. Everything's falling apart, everyone's leaving, and he doesn't know how to ask them to stay. Please stay.

He doesn't want to lose them. Or maybe he stupidly, selfishly just wants his audience back, so that he's not alone as he crashes and burns spectacularly. Yeah. Maybe it's that.

Two bright stars overhead blink at the same time.

Wait a second.

Rodimus jolts upright, and nearly topples sideways off the edge of the engine when his hand slips. Smooth.

The mech crouched on the pylon overhead grins, her optics unnaturally brilliant against the night sky. "Found you!" she says, studying him with interest. "Oh, yes. The other one was mildly disappointing. He puts on a nice lightshow, mind, but there's no substance! No spark! It's only reacting to space bridge energy, most of the time. But you…I can see why you would make a most excellent Matrix."

Spark still pounding from the near fall, Rodimus glances around. Just to make sure no one else is clinging to an engine around here that this random person might be talking to. He points at his own chest, belatedly, at a loss. "Uh…huh. Yeah, Matrix-bearer here. Who are you again? And why are you on my ship?"

Without warning, the mech drops. She lands on the engine with a clatter, the suspension chains swaying wildly as Rodimus yelps and clings to one of them. The stranger doesn't seem to notice, her balance perfect as she taps him on the nose. "Oh. Is that how the grammar works, these days?" she says, absently.

Then she grins, and it's all teeth. "Well. Either way. Tell me your woes, young mech."


	6. Chapter 6

\---

_The world is resting on the tip of her tongue._

\- [d.s. of Caminus](http://lavnderlesbian.tumblr.com/post/100267190131/the-world-is-resting-on-the-tip-of-her-tongue), <<Ἀφροδίτη>>

\---

Windvoice wakes up.

The world is oddly quiet. She shifts and uncurls from her recharging position, and absorbs the faint hum of Metroplex's internals and the pale light streaming in. When she sends the request, the window retracts and she can make out the indistinct, distant sound of traffic along with the rustle of trees. The sky's full of thin sheaves of clouds painted pale pink and orange by the rising sun as she rises and stretches.

She feels well-rested, despite the fact that her processor only had time for one full defragmentation cycle. Her mind is much clearer, the headache cleared so that all she senses is the soft hum of the dormant Creation Lathe, and when she glides down from her window to run through her exercises in the courtyard, she can enjoy the clear air and the sweeping, meditative motions of her pattern dances with only a faint, wistful pang at Chromia's absence.

Silverbolt and Fireflight catch up with her belatedly, and Silverbolt has some disgruntled words for her about dipping out the window without pinging them. Fireflight nods along, but his gaze keeps wandering up and up, toward the enticingly clear sky.

They're close enough to the heart of Metroplex to walk everywhere Windvoice needs to be, this morning. She takes off, instead, the two Aerialbots taking wing after her, and conceals a pulse of laughter as Fireflight, irrepressibly excited, turns a barrel roll with relish. She angles to the right, and considers pulling a lazy loop of her own when her sensors pick up four people in the courtyard below.

She recognizes all of them. One of them would've been enough to stop her dead in her tracks; all four together makes her jerk like she's glitching mid-flight, and then she spins downward so suddenly it has Silverbolt and Fireflight both tearing after her in a barrage of panicked pings.

Windvoice lands hard in the courtyard.

Vivere raises a hand in greeting with a benign, languid smile. Her EM field floods the courtyard with a sense of almost meditative calm. Rung sits beside her on the very edge of the bench, his posture prim and drawn tight with his hands folded so that he can keep his balance on the narrow corner left to him. He waves as well, sheepishly. Drift has foregone the bench entirely and just sits crisscross before Vivere, his optics modulated to be bright cyan.

Rodimus, laying sprawled out on the bench with his head in Vivere's lap, continues to air his grievances with very loose, fatigued gestures. He looks like he's been monologuing to the Muse of Life for several hours, his optics covered in a frazzled haze and lined with shadows. "- and I just really think I never moved past that. Part of me is still there."

"Such is life," Vivere assures him. Then, as Rodimus starts in on another tangent, she adds, "Hello, Windvoice. You look lovely this morning. Very calm and centered, very pastel blue."

Rodimus cranks his head around to look at Windvoice. "Have you _met_ this person? Because like. Holy Primus," he says, emphatically. He lets one hand flop against his chest. "Drift. My chakras feel so blitzed right now."

"I understood approximately none of that last sentence," Windvoice informs him. She's at a loss for how to handle any of this, honestly. Silverbolt and Fireflight are at loose ends, having clearly expected her to have dived down here for some kind of emergency.

Drift looks back at her with starry optics. The sword on his back sparks with bright-white electricity without apparent cause. "Speaker Windvoice, this is the Muse of Life!" He gestures at said Muse with both hands, as though expecting applause.

On the one hand, she completely empathizes with Drift's excitement. On the other hand, her dawning awareness that Rodimus, the dark nexus of spontaneity around which the _Lost Light_ 's chaotic misadventures seemed to center, and Vivere, an agent of pure impulse, are in close proximity to one another puts a bit of a damper on her worshipful awe. "I'm aware," Windvoice says, more grimly than she originally intended. "Good morning, Rung."

"I have always said you're welcome in my office if you needed to talk this badly, Rodimus," Rung says, sternly, before turning back to her. "Ahem. Did you need something, Speaker?"

She needs today to go smoothly. Unfortunately, she doesn't think she's going to get that. She glances up toward the sky in a silent prayer before answering. "No, no. Just. Er. Let me know if something… _Lost Light-_ worthy is about to ensue. We've already got Brainstorm working on something with Nautica and Killmaster down below."

Rung winces in sympathy, but his reassuring smile is entirely too cheerful, because absolutely no one in Rodimus's crew has any sense of perspective anymore. "‘ _Lost Light-_ worthy'? Well, that's certainly one way of putting it. I'm not even entirely sure why I'm here at this point, but Rodimus needed to get a great deal off his chest."

Rodimus continues to babble all the while, unbothered by the expanded audience. "- and it's like…I don't think he ever had high hopes or expectations for me or anything. I just _wanted_ him to have them, if that makes sense, and so I felt like I constantly let him down. Or I let myself down, trying to live up to that legacy. And like! He's not even my real dad!" He pauses, then backtracks. "…Sorry. A ‘dad' is -"

"I can infer from context," Vivere says.

Drift sighs happily, and pulls out a handheld comm unit. "Primus, wait until I tell Ratchet about this. He's gonna blow a gasket."

Rung clears his vocalizer and raises his hand again. Windvoice is grateful for the distraction. "By the way. When all of this has blown over, a recent arrival has made inquiries about opening a mental health clinic specifically aimed at Decepticons. I think the suggestion has merit, since technically I'm not even supposed to be a practicing therapist anymore, and…I know that there are those in the community who don't feel comfortable approaching me. His name is Krok, and -"

Windvoice is really starting to understand Metroplex's resignation to the inevitable. At this rate, she's going to have the Scavengers, the _Lost Light_ crew, and Vivere all in the same room, and Solus only knows what will happen next.

But she doesn't have time to try to sort this out. With any luck, her fears are completely unfounded.

Right. Right.

Windvoice closes her optics, then reopens them to try to clear her head. "Unfortunately, I have to go. If he truly wants to open such a clinic, I'm sure there's a need. If I'm still Speaker at the end of the day, let me know and I'll help move things along." She hesitates, then bows cautiously in the Muse's direction. "Vivere."

Vivere picks at some speck of dust on the end of Rodimus's blue chevron and inspects it, squinting. "Someone's coming home, Windvoice. Do what feels right," she says, absently. Her optics slant toward Windvoice, with a wry, crooked smile. "Carry on."

That…sounds like a warning.

And this morning started out so well.

But Windvoice didn't get where she is today by disrespecting people like the Muse of Life when they give her fair warning. She bows, more deeply this time. "Muse."

Vivere's still smiling enigmatically when Windvoice lifts her head and turns to walk the rest of the way to her office. Rodimus continues to ramble as Windvoice walks away, but she also hears Rung say, in a curious voice, "I could've sworn I knew you from somewhere. Have we met before? I've been told that I'm often around at critical socio-temporal points in history."

"Give it time. I'm sure it will come back to you," Vivere says, with a laugh.

She has a feeling it's going to be a long day.

Again.

-

By all rights, Windvoice should be there to personally welcome all of the Council representatives as they came – for the sake of diplomacy, or to monitor Metroplex's power consumption, if nothing else.

Ironhide, tactfully, suggested he be the one to greet the Camien envoys. The fact is, no matter who Windvoice delegates, the Mistress of Flame can claim offence – Lightbright is technically here against the decree of the Way of Flame, and Starscream is…Starscream. Ironhide is the most neutral choice she has.

To keep from overburdening Metroplex's space bridge they come in staggered waves throughout the morning, so Windvoice is able to escort those invited to her preliminary meeting to a quiet antechamber while everyone else is settled in rooms where they can prepare for the actual Council session. Lightbright entertains Trypticon's representatives with good cheer, giving them a rundown on how Council membership works, so that they understand what's coming. Slash, she reports, picks up the politics behind the decision-making process with silent, keen-eyed alacrity; Slipstream is more obstinate, impatiently demanding to know why they are not considered a Council world by default. There may be trouble if Trypticon's application doesn't go through. Windvoice is determined to make sure that Trypticon's appeal gets a fair hearing before the charges against her reach the boiling point.

The Eukarians arrive after a slight delay; Airazor and Tigatron are joined by a slender purple, black, and gold mech, the two pairs of angular orange optics on her torso burning with the same intelligence that lights the pairs on her face. When Windvoice greets them and bows, their guest bobs in a bow of her own, the gold-tipped edges of her extra limbs tucked in neatly and her face creased in a smile. "Fateweaver Blackarachnia. Welcome."

"Speaker Windvoice," Blackarachnia replies. She falls into an absorbed silence as Windvoice greets Airazor and Tigatron, and appears content to defer to the two delegates as the four of them make their way to the meeting room. Vanquish, Fireshot, and Moonracer are already present, along with a complete stranger who sits alone on the far side of the table, their posture perfectly correct as they pretend to inspect the microphone embedded in their wrist.

Tigatron halts in the entrance, scent sensors flaring. "This is…?"

Even knowing who she invited, they still throw Windvoice for a second: she'd come to envision someone built along lines similar to Rewind. But Repository is half again as tall as Rewind, with a pale lilac, rose, and grey frame that's clearly been rebuilt for war, or survival. The lines of their databank alt mode are still there, but altered to accommodate the armor and wings of a third alt. Where Rewind sports a camera mounted on the side of his helm, Repository has one embedded in their forehead like a third optic, and is absolutely covered in recording devices, including a headset with a sound guard that rests at the side of their mouth. "Repository," she says, for Tigatron's benefit as well as everyone else's. "A neutral archivist I've been consulting with." To Repository she adds, "I wasn't sure you would come. It's good to have you here."

They incline their head, light glinting off the camera lens. When they speak, their Tetrahexan accent isn't quite as strong as Cyclonus's, but very clear and precise. "I put off returning in order to see how things fell out. Being neutral does not mean I do not have strong feelings on the new world order," they say. Windvoice gets the distinct, uneasy impression that she's being evaluated as they speak. But after a moment's pause, Repository looks away, scanning the rest of the gathered delegates as they detach one of their fingers with a perfunctory twist and hand it to Windvoice. Vanquish and Fireshot wince in unison. "Everything I could find on the circumstances surrounding Solus Prime's death. As requested."

Ah. Now Windvoice can see the drive connector on the end of the finger. With an awkward thank you, she gingerly accepts the finger and uses one of the ordinary ports in her wrist to download the data packet off it. Repository seems completely disinterested in the status of their finger until Windvoice passes it back.

Not as much as she'd hoped, when she finishes unzipping the files – Cybertron didn't enshrine Solus in the way Camiens did, and records of almost everything before the era of the Senate and the Functionist movement are spotty thanks to censorship and later the systematic destruction of the war. Repository tags anything recorded or translated by Alpha Trion with #trion[invective][non-humorous], but that still makes up the majority of the historical record. But it'll give her something to work with, apart from her own memory of the Camien ballads.

"Why _are_ we all here?" Moonracer asks, tilting her head to the side. Apparently, she had little trouble pawning Knock Out off on Breakdown. The Velocitronian delegation has always been split between Moonracer, more sympathetically inclined toward Windvoice, and Knock Out, more aloof, competitive, and focused primarily on advancing Velocitron's interests. The difference in temperament seems to work out well for them, at least; Moonracer is always Windvoice's point of contact when she's interested in cooperating with them.

"No Starscream?" Vanquish notes, exchanging a look with his twin as Windvoice takes a seat between Repository and the Eukarians. Silverbolt and Fireflight take up positions beside the door, Fireflight more fidgety than usual since the room lacks an outside window or skylight.

"I've put enough on his plate already, this session. I'd rather share this with him once I know what I'm actually dealing with," Windvoice says with a sigh, rolling one shoulder with an audible _crack_. The tranquility of the early morning is dissipating rapidly now that she's back in the thick of it; she's starting to feel the late night again.

She does need to bring Starscream up to speed on all this, and Ironhide. Sooner rather than later. Lightbright hurries in after another moment, having left Trypticon's representatives in an antechamber of their own to await the official Council session. She squeaks in through the door, finds a spot at the table, with a curious, timid smile for the unfamiliar Repository, and then Windvoice locks the door so they can have privacy.

"Must be important, if you've got us all here in person," Fireshot presses, leaning forward on his elbows and exchanging an even more significant look with his twin.

They don't even know the half of it. "You could say that," Windvoice says, with a grim smile.

Then she tells them. Relating her encounter with Elita on Luna-1, and what Vigilem told her afterward, takes time, and they're in a bit of a crunch already.

Lightbright takes notes at first. Her stylus slows and eventually comes to a dead stop, falling out of her hand with a click. She stares at Windvoice, wide-eyed, as the tale grows more and more outlandish. Moonracer nods along, processing the information as fast as Windvoice can relate it, her mouth pursed in concentration. Vanquish and Fireshot have their heads together, occasionally piping up with clarifying questions - she can see the data cables linking their wrists as they think it over collectively. Blackarachnia is impossible to read; Airazor fans her flexible wings in and out, her expression as sharp as Moonracer's, while Tigatron frowns. Repository steeples their fingers together, expressionless but actively listening.

Finally, Windvoice sits back. Her thoughts are clearer today, now that her initial emotional backlash has calmed down. It feels even better to have it all off her chest, so that she has more than one set of optics on this.

"That's…that's a lot," Moonracer says, at last.

"I know."

Tigatron continues to frown at a corner of the conference table, brow furrowed in thought. "I can see now why you asked us to come," Airazor says, rubbing her head.

Windvoice shrugs. "I'm aware that as far as Vigilem goes, my judgment is – compromised. It's hard to be objective when you've been so deep in someone else's head." The same could probably be said for her working relationship with Starscream. "Vigilem has no evidence except that contained in his own memory banks, and presumably Liege's. Caminus's memories were shattered by grief. It's been several million years, and on Caminus, at least, the only records that survived came in the form of historical ballads and religious texts passed down through the Way of Flame."

"With obvious Primal bias," Repository mutters around their steepled hands. A visor slots down over their optics as they continue to mouth inaudible words to themselves.

Windvoice presses her knuckles along the surface of the table and leans back. "I want the truth. Your honest impressions and thoughts. Because if Vigilem's version holds true, it could affect everything. Elita…I don't know how she would handle it."

Flat denial only the least volatile of Elita's potential reactions.

"Just go around the table, then?" Moonracer says, dryly. She flutters her hand in a so-so motion. "It sounds as though Vigilem summarized his version of events. You did not relive the memories in their entirety in real time. He could easily have skipped over details that contradicted or complicated his interpretation. You yourself said you think he omitted something significant at the end. Regardless of how the war truly started, Vigilem has plenty of motive to frame things in such a way that they would cause us trouble or play us against each other."

"Regardless of his truce with you, we know he holds a grudge against the Carcerians. This would pit you against Elita irreconcilably, if she doesn't believe it," Tigatron adds, drumming his claws against his arm.

Repository snorts. They look deeply disturbed, however, when Windvoice actually gets a good look at their face. "The omission of Kathikon in the official story is key. All else aside, Titans are not so easily forgotten as that. A named Titan who isn't mentioned in any of the old literature… This _reeks_ of a cover-up." They refocus on their visor. "Hush. I need to cross-refer-"

"We know the name Kathikon," Blackarachnia says, quietly.

"-ence you _what_ ," Repository finishes, startled.

"We do?" Airazor says, almost at the same time. Tigatron looks nonplussed too, both of them looking askance at their guest.

Blackarachnia hums, and meets Windvoice's eyes, rueful. She seems to choose her words delicately. "It is not much. We remember the names of Chela's old, great allies – Metrotitan, Fusion, and Kathikon. But despite the alliances, Chela, with Onyx, found that standardformers could not help but dismiss us as…lesser. When Chela came to perceive that his fellow Titans acted the same way, he broke ties with them, and set forth to find a new sanctuary for our kind." A shrug that encompasses her alt mode's limbs. "So the story goes. Whatever goal lay behind the suppression of Kathikon's name, they overlooked us. To their peril."

Vanquish and Fireshot start talking in a cascade, which becomes a lot easier to follow when Windvoice stops glancing from one to the other while they bounce the words between them. "Wish we could -" "- check Fusion's memory banks on Devisiun. But -" "- their head was totally destroyed when they crash-landed." "We could at least confirm if –" "- there _was_ a battle against Kathikon -" "- through another Titan!"

Airazor sighs. "And Chela's brain module is destroyed, too."

Lightbright is still oddly silent. Windvoice pulls a face. "I asked Metroplex. He just said Kathikon was gone. It was the most fragmented he's been while trying to communicate something in months. He was distracted, and kept talking about his regrets. I intend to ask again, but…"

She's not sure if Metroplex is listening, even now. He was still ruminating, lost in his thoughts, when she checked on him earlier. It's possible for his sensors to be listening but for the input itself to get lost in the vast sea of his thoughts – another reason why cityspeakers monitor processor projections so closely.

Tigatron starts shaking his head and doesn't stop. His frown sinks in deeper as he says, "All of this is beside the point. Vigilem confessed to actively undermining the covenant of the Primes. He and Liege Maximo _did_ go around fueling the civil war that followed Solus's death. Megatronus _did_ kill Solus Prime. Vigilem asserts that Prima conspired against Megatronus even before that? That's not enough. They still started a war."

If one strips away the context, yes. It's one of the parts Windvoice struggles with the most: even if she accepts that Solus wanted Megatronus to kill her, Vigilem concealed something about the extreme fury with which he and Liege Maximo lashed out at the other Primes. "Intent matters. If it was at her request, and Kathikon was attacked by Prima first –"

"Then why wouldn't Solus have _told_ the others?" Moonracer counters. She glances at Tigatron, who merely nods in agreement. "This tale only holds coolant if Solus Prime was reticent to the point of glitching, and suicidal besides. The only two we might trust truly to verify this are Caminus, and Solus herself."

And that's the crux of the issue, really. With Solus dead, Caminus comatose, and every other Prime bar Alpha Trion gone – and Alpha Trion potentially part of the problem – they have nothing to do but talk in circles, with the eternal question of Vigilem's credibility the epicenter.

Windvoice can't rule out that that's precisely what Vigilem wanted. If the goal was to distract her and her allies, it's working. If Starscream had any idea she'd gathered her allies together to talk about _this,_ something only tangentially related to her impending standoff with the Mistress of Flame, he'd probably have an aneurysm. Which is another reason why he's not here.

"Lightbright?" she asks, as the other representatives start to speculate in earnest. The other cityspeaker has been quiet ever since Windvoice began.

Lightbright twitches and smiles at her weakly. "It's nothing. In private, maybe," she says.

"No. Speak your mind. Please. I need to hear it," Windvoice says, reaching out to touch the back of Lightbright's arm.

Lightbright bites her lower lip, then cycles a vent. By the time she sorts herself out, Moonracer and Airazor are both glancing at them, curious. "I just…worry. You've merged minds with a Titan more than anyone else – ever." Lightbright hesitates again, then pushes on. "I believe in you. But I also worry that if Vigilem _did_ influence your mind, none of us would be able to tell. Especially when we think the mnemosurgeon Airachnid had the opportunity to hurt you _and_ Starscream directly."

Right. Even a year after the fact – still not one of Starscream's smartest moves. They've discussed this before, Windvoice and the Eukarians in particular, due to the fact that Airachnid originated on their colony world before moving to prey on Cybertron. But although Windvoice was willing to risk Starscream's dangerous temper to demand exact answers about what the frag he was thinking, Airazor and Tigatron came back from consulting their people back home oddly willing to let things rest. Technically, Airachnid's punishment for her crimes on Eukaris had already been exile: the tribes showed zero interest in demanding her return if she was ever caught and tried for crimes on Cybertron. With them disinterested and Airachnid in the wind, with no further attacks after they moved to Neo-Cybertron, the most the Council could really do in response to the allegations that Airachnid brainwashed the Combaticons into blowing up the old Council chambers was to declare her a wanted criminal and hope for the best.

The question of Starscream's hazy connections with Airachnid…remain questions. At the time, Windvoice would've been more concerned about him allowing a mnemosurgeon to work on both of them, but she'd been a little distracted by Vigilem in her spark.

So much happens. All the time. And when Starscream panics, he cares even less about sane moral boundaries than he does when he's stable.

Blackarachnia presses a curled finger to her mouth, then raises her helm with a click of her vocalizer. "I could determine that, at least," she says, her voice equanimous. "Airachnid's methods are an abomination based on…subtler techniques which we use in order to spin fate. With your permission, I could check for any sign of alteration, though I could not correct it myself."

The unease is instinctive, and immediate. Airazor and Tigatron both look uncharacteristically solemn in the silence that follows; Lightbright opens her mouth, then slams it shut again, torn.

Repository shoves their chair back from the table with a harsh, angry hiss. "Mnemosurgeon. _Eraser_." They look sharply at Windvoice as they back further away, the lens of their camera trained on Blackarachnia like they expect her to leap over the table at any moment. "You can't trust someone with their needles in your neck."

"The needles are not supposed to go _in_ anyone's neck. Merely skim the surface," Blackarachnia shakes her head with a bitter, regretful expression, her optics distant. "I have seen Airachnid's work before. The mangled minds she leaves in her wake. I will have no part in that."

"Or there is another mnemosurgeon here on Neo-Cybertron. Isn't there?" Lightbright suggests, uncertainly.

Before Windvoice can respond, Repository stalks over to the door. "I can't stay," they say, clipped.

Windvoice half-stands from her seat, then thinks better of trying to reach out. Repository is wired, shaking like someone on the verge of exploding. "I'm sorry. Thank you for coming."

Repository hovers at the door for a moment longer. Then, just as abruptly, they turn on their heel and stalk back to the table. "I have to stay." They drop into their seat, and stare daggers at Blackarachnia. "I know what it looks like when someone mangles a mind."

Blackarachnia stares back, unflappable. "Fair enough."

Windvoice swallows, realizing that the decision still falls to her. Just the thought of letting someone open up her helm to poke around inside provokes an instinct revulsion. Processors are rather fond of reminding you that you're not _supposed_ to leave them vulnerable like that. Her tanks want to flip just thinking about it.

But Starscream already put them past that point. He did it to save her life, for his own benefit – but he left both of them exposed.

Windvoice clears her vocalizer. "Could you? Now?"

Blackarachnia tips her head back, her optics slitted. "With your consent."

She probably shouldn't be doing this. Her brain is making itself very clear on that front. "Do we need another room?"

"Only if you wish it, Speaker Windvoice."

Blackarachnia rises from her seat, her deceptively innocuous hands pressed together as she steps around behind Windvoice. Belatedly, Vanquish emits a strangled blip of protest; everyone else is in varying stages of indecision and apprehension. Lightbright is the most worried of all, her hands pressed over her mouth as she watches Blackarachnia skim the back of Windvoice's helm, her EM field frazzled.

Windvoice dips her head and fights back the urge to purge her tanks. It's nerves, plain and simple; a cold, careful touch on the back of her helm, and she nearly jumps out of her seat, but Blackarachnia doesn't even have her needles out yet.

A faint _snk_ , and the next touch has a sharper point. Windvoice clenches her jaw, but all she feels is a faint prickle along the back of her neck, like something small skittering over the surface of her plating. As her anxiety recedes, Windvoice counts eight light pinprick needles tracing the back of her neck and the underside of her helm. Blackarachnia pauses occasionally, adjusting her extended needles and then holding them in that pattern for several long seconds before moving on to the next position. An extra fizzle of electricity runs through her sensors and the dense bundle of circuits and wires clustered at the base of her processor at regular intervals; it makes her paint itch like it's peeling. All the while, she's very conscious of the other Council representatives' optics on her, and Repository staring at Blackarachnia with haunted eyes.

"Hm." Blackarachnia traces the needles down the back of Windvoice's neck one last time, with an oddly protracted pause right where Windvoice's neck meets her back and shoulders. Her hands linger there for a moment before drawing away; she retracts the needles as she steps around, her expression noticeably warmer when she meets Windvoice's eyes. "Such bright threads you weave, Speaker. What will you make of the future, I wonder?"

Something good, she can only hope. "Did you find anything?" Windvoice asks; her hand sneaks up to rub the back of her neck before she can stop herself. The itching sensation lingers.

Blackarachnia hums again. "I can sense no sign of alteration or interference. You bear marks from Airachnid's needles, but they were used only to connect you to another mind, and to make a copy of a very large data packet. They were not deep enough to require your processor to rebuild connections around the gaps."

She can sense that much just by touching her neck? Windvoice shivers at the thought of what Airachnid could have seen. "A copy of Vigilem's mind," she says, unconsciously rubbing her neck one last time before mentally berating herself for being rude. "She tried to upload it into his new processor to speed things along for Liege Maximo."

"I think it more likely she tried to download his mind in its entirety, not merely a copy."

Then Blackarachnia hesitates, and carefully touches the side of Windvoice's temple. Something knocks sharply against the underside of the table; Windvoice glances sharply at Repository.

Blackarachnia's optics slant toward the sound for a moment, coolly assessing; then she ignores the disruption, and traces the Creation Lathe where it lays dormant on the side of Windvoice's helm. "There is something else. How often do you wear this?"

Windvoice reaches up and brushes the side of her head, self-consciously. The gentle hum of its inactive state barely registered all this time, but now she's hyper aware of it. "The Creation Lathe? Most of the time. Usually I keep it dormant, but it's useful to keep on hand. Why?"

Blackarachnia lets her hand fall, claws curling slightly as she returns to her seat. "The Lathe is rooted very deeply in your mind. It has caused no harm that I can divine. But I would caution you against using it in a dangerous situation. If it is torn out prematurely while activated, it would shred a substantial chunk of your sensory and analytical cortex software."

That's…Windvoice was aware of the Creation Lathe's drivers in her processor, but when Blackarachnia phrases it like that, it's…ominous. Really, everything feels like an ill omen, today. She'd like it to stop now.

"I see," she replies. Her voice sounds like it's coming from a long way off.

\---

 _And then there's_ this _asshole._

\- anonymous source, on the subject of one Spike Witwicky

\---

In the end, they do find time to discuss the upcoming Council session. Repository excuses themselves when they all finally admit defeat in trying to suss out Vigilem's trustworthiness and turn their attention to official business, but Blackarachnia remains, her orange optics distant as she drums her alt mode's limbs along the sides of her seat. _Tktktktk, tktktktk…_

The sound drifts in and out of Windvoice's awareness right until they're forced to break up. Time's too tight; the Council session begins in a half hour, and while the Devisens and Eukarians have reaffirmed that they're not inclined to side with the Camien motion at all, Moonracer is more circumspect. "Knock Out's lost his patience with the whole mess. He thinks we ought to have dropped or settled this ages ago, or else just tossed you and the Mistress onto a race track together to handle things the old-fashioned way. But he thinks the Earth thing with Optimus is just as annoying, so it may even out."

With that, Windvoice has to be content. The Devisens are halfway out the door, bickering amongst themselves, and she's about to follow them when Blackarachnia's subtly _tk_ ing cuts off. "Forgive me, Speaker. There is one more thing," she says, suddenly. "A liberty, perhaps, but…may I inspect your back?"

Windvoice resets her optics and looks to Airazor and Tigatron. The two look just like they're caught off-guard. "Uh."

Vanquish shuffles awkwardly in the door. "We actually can, uh, stay, if you want us to -"

Blackarachnia's gaze never wavers; she's watching Windvoice as though there's some urgent warning going unheeded. "This may be a private matter. I could not say without your input," the Eukarians says, her tone oddly formal. She tips her head toward the delegates, pointedly.

Airazor touches Tigatron's shoulder, and they exchange glances. "We'll give you a minute," Airazor says, and shoots an encouraging thumbs up at Windvoice as she and Tigatron head out the door, the Devisens scurrying to stay ahead of them. Moonracer hesitates, then goes as well. They all have their own preparations to make.

Windvoice's bodyguards shift uneasily. Silverbolt in particular has a jut in his chin as though he's about to pre-emptively protest. Windvoice thinks it over as fast as she can, and makes her choice. "Silverbolt, Fireflight. Stay, please."

Silverbolt subsides, looking put out. Fireflight bounces up on his toes, abruptly interested again as Blackarachnia comes up to Windvoice once more, once the door shuts again. Windvoice is standing, but that seems to work fine; Blackarachnia starts at the base of her neck this time, where she lingered with her needles before, and then draws her fingers under the blade of armor that transitions into Windvoice's wing, like she's searching for something. The needles don't prickle as much until they come back up and hover over two spots on either side of her spinal strut, the slate grey trapezoid plate between her wings. "There," Blackarachnia says, sounding weirdly intrigued. Windvoice struggles not to fidget. "Tell me. Are you aware that you have ancillary processors in your back?"

 _What_.

"…No," Windvoice says, choked. The shock ices her spark over.

Blackarachnia nods, walking her needles back up Windvoice's spine. "These are deepwired in the protoform. I can follow the line where they link to your main processor. And you, a million years too old to develop new instars." The interest in her tone turns to speculation, but Windvoice can barely parse her words. Her hands are shaking by her sides and she can't seem to wrench away. "I can only speculate, Speaker. But I believe Lightbright was right. Your exposure to Titans has begun to change you. Your brain module could not handle the strain, and the spark has started to compensate with secondary modules. Such an adaptation of the spark's template for the frame would ordinarily take hundreds of thousands of years to initiate. Your mind is _alight_ with activity."

It doesn't feel like her mind is alight; it feels like it's as frozen as the poles of Caminus. A glacier is about to roll over her, and she didn't even notice it inching toward her all this time. "What does that mean?" she rasps, her voice thready. One of her knees buckles a little and she catches herself on the back of her chair.

Silverbolt and Fireflight are still here. Slag, she doesn't think she wants anyone here.

Blackarachnia steps back and shrugs, noncommittally. "I could not say. You may have one of your healers check my work, but the modules appear to be fully integrated. No signs of rejection from the spark, as there might be if they were artificially inserted without your knowledge or consent. They are a part of you, as much as your hand or your wings."

There's a hysterical burst of laughter waiting in her vocalizer, if Windvoice chooses to let it happen. _Like a Titan,_ she thinks, on the verge of screaming. Her ventilation cycles are uneven, and it's making her dizzy. "Thank you for telling me."

Hesitation – then Blackarachnia takes her by the hand and pulls the chair out for her, sitting on the edge of Airazor's abandoned seat as she pressed Windvoice's numb hand between hers. At least the needles have retracted, now. Her smile, when Windvoice manages to focus again, is mild and even. As if she thinks Windvoice might break. "On Eukaris, we learned to adapt to survive, in ways that others have not. As rare as this may be, you are still you," she says. She rests a hand on the hunched, shuddering curve of Windvoice's shoulder, and Windvoice realizes abruptly that she's almost curled up into a ball on the seat, completely unawares. She stiffly unbends, forcing herself to vent normally; she can't face the Council in a state like this. Nothing's changed since yesterday – these processors have been here for Solus only knows how long. Panic won't get her anywhere.

But _Solus_ , she wishes things were simple.

When she forcibly steadies herself and draws herself upright, staring at the ceiling for a moment with bleary optics to gather her mental strength, Blackarachnia squeezes her hand one last time. "I must return to Eukaris. But there is a name I would share with you." Despite her mild expression, her alt mode's optics burn into Windvoice's, assessing her even as Blackarachnia offers comfort. It's Elita all over again – and Windvoice still doesn't know whether she's been found wanting.

There's a crash waiting for her, at the bottom of this sudden precipice. And Chromia's not here to catch her anymore.

Another vent. She pushes through it. "Who?"

Blackarachnia nods, one end of her smile crooking slightly higher in approval. "One of Eukaris's deepest secrets. Someone with whom you may share much in common."

Windvoice is so off-balance that she almost misses the faint pressure on the inner seam of her wrist. Eukaris's spoken hand reminds her more of Caminus's than Cybertron's – expressive, with less shorthand and more demonstrative gestures to accent the words themselves. The name Blackarachnia signs in a broad stroke that runs up Windvoice's wrist and blooms across her palm, growing from [roots] to [crown] to [Botanica].

Then she folds Windvoice's hand closed, for [silence].

When Blackarachnia lets go, Windvoice keeps her hand shut. She doesn't let herself tremble; she meets Blackarachnia's gaze instead. "Thank you. For everything," she says.

Her crooked smile deepens. As they head out at last, Blackarachnia laces her claws together and continues to speak in a low murmur. "There may come a time when Eukarians come to Neo-Cybertron, as those of other colonies have done. Know this – we are _your_ allies. Not only because we agree that you have done what is necessary when faced with insurmountable odds, but because you have demonstrated that you will see and treat us as people. We can no longer live in the shadow of Onyx; I see a path forward where we are not eternally at odds with or ground down beneath the heel of those who should be our kindred."

Windvoice thinks of everything she's learned of Cybertron's past – of Functionism, and the Grand Taxonomy, the disposable classes, and the fact that there are so very few native-born beast alt Cybertronians that seem to have survived the war. Of Waspinator, who is so odd and sweet but so afraid, and Rattrap, whose disappearance on the eve of Unicron's coming went almost unremarked, except in Ironhide's missing persons' database. Of the Mistress of Flame's cold, cutting dismissal of Airazor and Tigatron and on-going, open disdain, and the fact that Windvoice never noticed its existence because Caminus's beast alt population is even lower than Cybertron's. Part of that uncomfortable population gap might trace its roots all the way back to Chela spiriting his children away en masse to find sanctuary on Eukaris – but not all of it. "We could do better."

Blackarachnia's smile is cryptic as they reach one of the open-air halls that connect this side area to Metroplex's center. "One can always do better. We are always growing."

And then, with an audible _WHMPH_ , the sun goes out.

Windvoice's optics adjust frantically; after the initial surprise, she darts out from under the walkway and realizes that the light's still there, but eclipsed.

An immense ship hovers overhead – not in orbit like Vigilem or Trypticon, but lower, blocking out the noon sun, the disrupted clouds in tatters around it. It's unnameably hideous: a thorny halo of white branches that snake across the sky, surrounding a giant eye. Like an optic stripped of its protective lens, so that the internal workings bulge outward around a huge, looming iris.

"What is _that_?" Windvoice says, horrified.

Blackarachnia seizes her arm. Windvoice jolts, startled. "I thought we had more time," the Fateweaver says, quietly – her eyes are fixed on the optic craft, grim. Her claws dig into Windvoice's arm when her gaze snaps back down. "Speaker, heed me. Your Starscream destroyed Chela's mind with good reason. We have seen it."

Of all the things Windvoice could fixate on, the most ridiculous pops out of her mouth on reflex. " _My_ Starscr-"

"Vigilem is not the only Titan who knows of lies," Blackarachnia finishes. Then she draws back into the even darker shadow of the hall, her optics gleaming in the dark as she transforms. "I must go to Botanica."

Then her many limbs find purchase on the wall, and the ceiling, and Blackarachnia scuttles away, toward the space bridge chamber.

Fireflight just stares up at the torn sky, blankly. "What the _slag_."

Silverbolt is the one to drag Windvoice back, out of range of whatever kind of weaponry that kind of monstrous ship could carry.

-

Starscream pings her to a balcony on the tenth floor of the government building. The rest of the Council representatives are scrambling; only Airazor and Tigatron successfully backtrack to find Windvoice in the darkness, and join her and the Aerialbots on their way up. Ironhide catches up with them in Metroplex's halls, but only to inform her that he's coordinating with his security teams in the cities to prep in case they need to evacuate everyone. Giant space-faring eyes weren't _specifically_ mentioned in any of the emergency plan memos, but they _do_ have extensive experience handling mass evacuations in the face of potentially apocalyptic peril. He takes off at a run when she gives the okay, with a promise to be back shortly.

Windvoice hates it. She's seen how jaded Cybertronians are about being driven from their homes. She wanted to build something safe here, give them something resembling stability, and yet they still can't seem to go more than a year without something like this happening.

"Well, that's still terrifying," she mutters, when she, Silverbolt, Fireflight, and the Eukarians finally reach the balcony and coast to a stop. After just a scant few minutes running through the halls, unable to see the optic craft, the leering sight overhead strikes her with a fresh pang of unease. Lightbright's already here, leaning out over the railing to crane her neck up at the sky, while Starscream lurks against the wall, his violet optics burning in the unnatural twilight. "Have they contacted us yet?"

"No, they haven't. Nothing through Metroplex or Vigilem or our regular comms network," Lightbright reports, shaking her head. "Nothing from Vigilem at all. That thing came out of nowhere."

"That's not a Cybertronian ship, is it?" Windvoice asks, looking to both Starscream and Silverbolt.

Silverbolt grimaces and shakes his head. Starscream snorts, and says, "Not one I've ever seen. Decepticons ran more toward the gauche – ships shaped like the badge or Megatron's aft, subtle things like that. _You're_ the expert: are there any Titans running around out there with disturbingly large, mobile eyes?"

Given what she knows about Metroplex's thumb and its misadventures - "Sweet Solus, I hope not."

Starscream rolls his eyes, but his mouth is a thin, tight line. Ironically, he looks better-rested than he did last night – but he's worried. Starscream worried is a very different flavor from Starscream panicked, and unsettling to witness.

Then he glances up, and blinks. "Well, you'd better figure it out," he snaps, jabbing a finger up at the sky, "Because that's _your_ bodyguard up there."

Windvoice whips around. Distantly, she hears Lightbright stifle a gasp behind her hand as Windvoice rushes to the edge of the balcony and stares up.

Something's fundamentally _wrong_ about the space around the optic craft's iris – she can see the three figures who step out of it as though they're magnified behind a bubble. Automatically, she taps the Creation Lathe open so that it can analyze in the background, while she gapes at the people above.

She recognizes all three at once. Liege Maximo she could hardly forget: he's in chains, on his knees with his head low, and Vigilem's stark silence takes on a new layer of meaning.

Beside him, a pale blue figure stands at attention, her hands folded behind her back. Even at this distance, with the magnification effect, Windvoice can read her awkward, stiff posture – when she's out of her depth, Chromia never knows quite what to do with her hands.

But she's here. And she's home. And Liege with her. Windvoice's hands tighten on the railing. "Chromia," she whispers.

Then a pair of grand, elegant wings spread wide behind Chromia, and the third mech's voice sounds throughout the cities in a low rumble, like thunder.

"People of Cybertron. I am Onyx, of the Primes. I return."

-

" _Onyx_ Prime _,_ " Starscream repeats, scandalized. Lightbright keeps shaking her head, torn between awe and apprehension.

Windvoice settles on worrying about what she considers a _much_ more immediate problem. "And Liege Maximo," she says, grimly. The Lathe outlines Onyx's optic craft in fuchsia, but the lines of light on the projected visor spasm and twist into a weird vortex centered around the iris itself. They're descending on a platform now, at a slow, unhurried pace, Onyx's wide wings a beacon in the unnatural light of the ship.

Liege Maximo's presence changes everything. Her understanding with Vigilem, the precarious state of affairs with Elita-1 – all of it just went out the window. Vigilem is active and free, and he could show up at _any moment_ to throw things into complete and utter chaos.

"No," Tigatron growls. Disturbed, he turns to Airazor, armor bristling defensively. "We have to find – where did Blackarachnia go?"

The Lathe draws curves around the iris, overlapping slightly each time in hypotrochoid patterns. [Engine type: unknown – quantum frequency error - ] "She said that she needed to go to Botanica," Windvoice says, distractedly. Then – "Roof," she adds, tracking the angle of Onyx's gradual descent through the sky. One way or another, they need to be there to meet him.

The two Eukarians stop dead in their tracks. They look at each other in silence, and then Tigatron nods, slowly. "I'll go," he says. He touches the side of Airazor's face, but then he's off, leaping into alt mode and racing away before Airazor finishes leaning her face to meet him. Her expression is set with determination when she raises her head once more.

"Oh, fantastic," Starscream hisses. His bad temper seethes in his field; when Windvoice hastily hops onto the balcony railing and transforms, he does the same by dropping sideways, arms folded in disgust until the last second. Silverbolt, Fireflight, and Airazor join them, Airazor's transformation sequence more fluid, her alt mode seamlessly a part of her. Starscream switches to comms. [One of your closest allies just grew a massive conflict of interest. How long until you're dealing with _him_ , instead of Airazor?] He flies hard on Windvoice's right, the edges of their wings almost overlapping. Windvoice hesitates when she banks to turn over the roof, in case it's Starscream forgetting his broader wingspan, but Starscream adjusts with smooth precision. [Trust me. A Prime _always_ thinks his opinion takes precedence. And they don't take no for an answer.]  His field spikes with displeasure when they come around for the landing. [Speak of the devil…] 

The roof's already crowded; the other Councilors beat them here, along with Ironhide. Moonracer and Knock Out are at the fore, having probably reached the roof first, but the rest of the Council is arranged around them along with anyone else who was in the building when Onyx arrived. Optimus Prime stands at the edge of the roof, his stance wide and braced as though for a challenge with a foreboding furrow in his brow. Starscream shifts his angle so he's set to buzz Optimus; hastily, Windvoice moves so that Starscream's forced to veer away with a huff, and they land in the space cleared by the crowd. Fireflight overshoots a little and stumbles his way to a landing on his feet, looking dizzy.

The swirling of vortex of terror sketched out by the Lathe can process in the background. Right now, the sight is only distracting her. Windvoice commands the visor to blink off while the Lathe stays unfurled along her helm, and strides past the Mistress of Flame and her three attendants to march up beside Optimus, Starscream right on her heels. She can't imagine what kind of precedent it would set if she let Optimus take point here – not in the least because Optimus looks like he's ready and waiting to pick a fight to the death. Windvoice pitches her voice to carry, stern and self-assured in a way she doesn't actually feel. "Let's hear him out. Chromia can tell us more. Like what else is on that ship."

Optimus looks back over his shoulder, still frowning. Whatever he sees in her face must get her mood across: he slowly eases back from the edge of the roof, reluctance in every centimeter of his frame. He watches her with searching optics, but Windvoice can't stop to analyze whatever mood he's in right now. Communication between them broke down a long time ago; after the debacle with his move to annex Neo-Cybertron, she's not sure it can be repaired.

That won't stop her from trying. But not here, not now.

Starscream studiously ignores Jazz, Aileron, and Jetfire, and pretends to inspect the tips of his fingers as he stands behind Windvoice and cocks his hip to the side. "I think we'll generously accept custody of Liege Maximo whether he offers it or not, Ironhide. Make it so," he drawls in an undertone, shooting the back of Optimus's helm an ugly glare before transferring it to Onyx overhead.

Ironhide has two datapads in hand and a comm line so crowded with pings from his people that Windvoice can practically sense the chatter from here. He rolls his optics with resignation and looks to Windvoice to confirm. She nods with a sympathy eye roll, and then eyes Optimus, wondering if she can order him to back off. Jazz hangs off the edge of the Earth delegation's small cluster, looking as though he could slip away into the crowd at any moment.

But there's no time. The platform carrying Onyx finishes its descent and comes to rest a step off from the roof, framing Onyx's imposing height against the dark sky. She's seen statues before, but nothing on Caminus truly did Onyx Prime justice – not in the least, she suspects, because the grand statue in the Memorium Hall partially obscured his forward set of legs and depicted him bipedally. The scent of lightning and rust rolls off him like the leading edge of a storm. Part of Windvoice automatically wants to bow in awe, stricken to the core with reverence. This is a Prime: a god, a force of nature given form.

A Prime who just parked his giant eyeball in front of their sun. The thought of Metroplex's now-deprived solar panel arrays reminds her of her real priorities. Starscream's menacing elbow is half-raised to prod her into motion when she steps forward, hands open and spread wide before her. "Onyx Prime. I am Windvoice, elected Speaker of Neo-Cybertron. What brings you to our world?"

That aquiline helm dips, four red eyes fixing on her for a brief, spark-stopping moment. When he speaks, Onyx's voice sounds lower even than Optimus's – yet Windvoice gets the faintest impression that he's…amused. She's not sure where she's reading that, but she can't shake it. "In my travels, I never thought to come across a familiar face," Onyx says, his voice sending a ripple through the crowd. He gestures with one elegant, cruelly sharp claw toward the two smaller mechs beside him. "The warrior Chromia valiantly fought to bring down the traitorous Liege Maximo, who has betrayed our kind. He is yours, now. Having witnessed her skill, and heard of Cybertron's fate, I return with her to render judgement upon him, and to see what has become of our home world. It has been a long time."

No mention of Arcee, Windvoice notes. But most of her soaks in the sight of Chromia. _A year_. Chromia bears new, scattered weld marks on her armor plating, including one that clips across the outer corner of her left optic. She holds herself so rigidly that Windvoice wonders if she's bracing herself due to some unseen injury. Her gaze fixes on Windvoice like a magnet, her optics full of desperation – and warning. Though she stands with her feet planted behind Liege Maximo, it's Onyx who holds the end of the chain.

"It has," Windvoice replies, to two different people.

That seems to crack Chromia's stiff façade; she leaves Liege on the platform and strides forward, only to drop to one knee and press a fist to her chest when she reaches the Council. "Speaker Windvoice," she says, formally.

A twist in her spark. Windvoice stoops and catches Chromia's forearms, drawing her back up with a helpless tug. "Don't. Don't kneel for me," she says, stricken. Rapidly – slag, she didn't expect to have to confront all of _this_ in one day – she pulls together a coherent response. "You've brought back Liege Maximo. Your exile is ended. We'll discuss the terms of pardon later."

Chromia looks up, with that bittersweet twist in her familiar smile. She grasps Windvoice's forearm in turn, reflexively, but this can't happen here.

They both know a year of hunting Liege isn't enough penance. Not in Chromia's mind, not for what she did. This can never be the same.

Windvoice wants to be selfish. Just for this one precious thing.

By the time she looks up, however, Onyx has dismissed her. Ironhide manages to wrangle his way to the front of the crowd and takes custody of Liege Maximo the old-fashioned way – by putting his hands on Liege's shoulders and hauling him up, casually omitting to ask permission. Onyx lets the chain fall from his claw, almost careless, his four optics glittering with amused intent as he watches Ironhide and two guards escort Liege Maximo out of the way. The crowd parts for them in a flurry of murmurs.

Onyx singles out Optimus almost idly, the sharpness of his teeth undercutting the casual, benign lilt of his smile. "And you are the one called Prime."

Starscream radiates indignation; Windvoice ignores the comm he fires off, because she already knows it's an ‘I told you so.'

To his credit, Optimus shifts with unease, his gaze flicking to Windvoice as though seeking permission. "I have reclaimed that title. My name is Optimus Prime. This world, as well as another, is under my protection. Let us speak as rational mechs."

And something about that…is wrong. Windvoice can't tell whether it's the flare of Onyx's wings, so alien and unreadable, or a flicker in his tailored EM field – but Onyx's smile inches up at the corner, sharp and dangerous. "Rational. Of course. We must talk, Prime to Prime," he says, with a casual wave of his hand as he steps off the platform. He still towers over almost everyone present, his legs moving with a predatory grace as he lingers over Optimus. The Council is little more than an afterthought. "There is much we must discuss, not in the least the fate of my disgraced kin."

Optimus nods, slow and even. "Of course."

-

Starscream is absolutely incandescent with rage. Windvoice isn't, but she _is_ wary of the turn things took. The crowd disperses as people hurry to deal with the consequences of Onyx's abrupt arrival; Ironhide keeps Windvoice updated with a barrage of comms so that she knows which cell Liege is placed in, and the status of the patrols in the city who are helping to prevent mass panic. She fires off a rushed soundbite for Circuit, so that the press can report on Onyx's arrival instead of wild, panicked speculation, but it's not going to be enough. The longer the optic craft looms over everyone, the more friction will build up as people grow agitated. The Decepticon contingent, loathe as she is to single them out like this, are rather notorious for rioting by this point.

"We don't know what he wants," she says, tersely, as she tries to find a hallway that isn't crowded so she can think clearly for a moment before plunging back into the thick of things.

Starscream clenches both his hands into fists. "It doesn't matter what he wants. It matters that he's giving Optimus _ideas_ ," he snaps, darkly. Without warning he peels away from their group and storms off down the cross hallway, toward his office. "Under his protection! Slagger!" carries back to them, before his furious invectives become inaudible.

Which means she probably needs to worry about him attempting to retaliate for the perceived slight by assassinating Optimus. Urgh. Shaking her head, Windvoice pulls a face and then cycles a vent. "Airazor. Will you be alright?" she asks, looking to the Eukarian who stuck with their group.

Airazor smiles wanly, her frame wound tight with tension. "I'll manage."

The Council of Worlds' founding documents don't have anything in them about accommodating the sudden return of one of the member world's long-absent Primes. A huge, glaring oversight. Optimus is one thing – not one of the original Thirteen, with a shakier foundation for his claims. Onyx is quite another. Airazor hasn't said anything, but she and Tigatron were both on edge before he left.

Finally, halfway down, Windvoice pings Metroplex. The response is delayed and faint, but he directs them to a clear area. There, despite Airazor, Silverbolt, and Fireflight's presence, she whirls and pulls Chromia into a crushing hug.

She's needed it for a long time. Before they ever came back to Cybertron, she'd occasionally wondered whether to ask Chromia if she'd prefer to transition to conjunx endure – but they were comfortable as they were, and it never came up in conversation.

Now here they are, with a year and the people Chromia killed in between them, and Windvoice needs an amica more than anything.

Chromia clutches her back twice as hard, one hand trembling like she just ran a race to get here. "I'm sorry," she says, her voice thick. "He caught up to us out of nowhere, right when we'd pinned Liege down. His craft – you have no idea how fast it _moves_."

Windvoice is concerned that it's something along the _Lost Light_ 's lines – speed isn't the problem when quantum engines are involved. The Lathe churns in the background, but how that optic craft might affect the already tenuous resonance problem is…significant. She's already sent notice to Wheeljack. She swallows hard. "It's alright, Chromia. This complicates things again, but we'll handle it." After a few moments trickle by, she pulls back a little, pressing a hand to the side of Chromia's face as she memorizes the changes: the paler color of her repainted face where the paint didn't quite match the original; a distinctively white and pink blaster in a hip slot, that doesn't match Chromia.

None of it matters. "You're okay."

Chromia's smile is crooked, but real. "Better than." She keeps one hand on Windvoice's arm as she jerks a thumb at Silverbolt and Fireflight, wryly adding, "These guys my replacements?"

"Never." Windvoice fixes her posture and straightens – then tilts backwards, letting her shoulders slump with a sigh. "But I get the feeling things are going to be hectic."

Chromia looks the two Aerialbots up and down, arches a brow when Fireflight gives a tiny wave, then shrugs. "Hey, the more the merrier." Catching Windvoice's eye, she says, "A friend says she wouldn't trust Onyx. She's around. And there's a small army of mechs on that ship up there – not Eukarian. Bigger. Never got a name out of them."

Well, that's…less than ideal. She should probably warn Starscream, despite her reservations. Was it just bad luck that Chromia and Arcee ran straight into Onyx while pursuing Liege? Or something more sinister? Windvoice is starting to have very cross, uncharitable thoughts about the Way of Flame, and the fact that no one ever thought up catechisms for something useful, like how to handle a long-lost Prime who turns up out of nowhere just as potent as he was millions of years ago, after apparently abandoning his people and wandering the galaxy with an entirely new army of mysterious followers. She keeps having to make these things up as she goes along and it's giving her a migraine. In all three of her processors, apparently!

She sends a text comm to Starscream before she can second-guess herself. He responds with a keyboard smash that vaguely resembles Earth curse words.

(Still nothing from Vigilem.)

There's still the possibility that Onyx legitimately came in peace. She can't assume bad faith just because he blocked out the sun. "I'm not sure what to make of Onyx, either," she says aloud, hedging. Chromia shoots her a _look_ , but it's true. After everything she's learned the past few days, she can't say one way or another that Onyx is a threat. "Right. Liege first. Then this Council meeting." And what a meeting it's going to be. Good grief.

She sets off, walking fast. Chromia keeps perfect pace with her, stride widening as she frowns. "Liege? Do you have enough time?"

Technically, the Council session was supposed to start twelve minutes ago. They're all equally late. Windvoice pushes a rescheduling notification through the comms network, since everyone's on planet, and picks up the pace. "We'll make time. I need to see him. For myself."

-

Ironhide races out in the exact opposite direction when they reach the tiny cellblock. Metroplex's revamped holding cells are mostly the same as those in the main prison in Censere, but Windvoice refused to make more of Metroplex a prison than absolutely necessary. "- you, Fort Max. Keep him there, we do _not_ need help -"

Then he's off to put out some other fire. Windvoice nods to the guards he left behind, who let her by so that she can stop before Liege Maximo's cell.

Up close, the beauty of his face and the cant of his horns are as familiar as the back of Vigilem's hand. He lacks Onyx's stature, but they share that polished beauty and grace that time couldn't touch, in stark contrast to Alpha Trion's decline. In the rush, Ironhide failed to remove the chains binding Liege; he remains on his knees, his gaze remote and unapproachable as he lifts his head to see who's come. His silvery cape drapes around him as he languidly adjusts his weight, and a twinge of curiosity flickers in her thoughts.

"Liege Maximo," she says. Her vocalizer feels oddly dry. She's – not nervous.

A faint smile, barely enough to curve his mouth, touches Liege's face. She recognizes the look in his eyes very well – not quite smiling to match his lips, but with a burning, intense light that seems to drill into her helm. He looked at her like that once before: when she merged with Vigilem the second time, and Liege Maximo bowed. Mockery, or respect – she couldn't tell which.

"Well, well," Liege Maximo says, lightly. He inclines his head, the chains wrapped around his arms clinking, and raises it again with a sardonic smile. "Lady Windvoice. You made quite the impression on Vigilem. And he is so difficult to impress. What brings you to my chambers?"

Since she half-expected to be racing Vigilem to get here, that is an _excellent_ question. One way or another, liar or not, Liege Maximo was a diplomat; there will be subtleties here that Windvoice just won't register if she tries to pry answers from him. Starscream should be here: his paranoia isn't always accurate, but he sees things from multiple different angles.

Liege would know if Vigilem's story is true. But she can't trust him. Is the sympathy in her spark a lie? Or is her mistrust something instilled in her by the history she was taught, rather than based on facts?

"The truth, I hope," she says, rubbing the underside of the reinforced port and wishing the Lathe could make sense of her swirling, clashing thoughts like it does everything else.

"The truth is never simple," Liege murmurs, absently. Then his brows snap together as he follows her hand, and she realizes abruptly that he's staring at the Lathe.

She deactivates it and lets her hand fall. Right. She wouldn't have had the Lathe the last time their paths crossed. If Liege knew Solus even half as well as Vigilem claims, he surely recognizes the Lathe for what it is. Its unfurled form in particular is distinctive.

The odd tension in Liege's frame slackens as he settles back on his knees. That intent, searching gaze is back, fixed on her. "Onyx is no friend of yours, young Speaker," he says, changing the subject.

Behind her, Chromia snorts in derision. It's been so long since she heard that - since she had Chromia at her back, always.

And yet...

Chromia doesn't know all that's happened, these past few days. Windvoice lays her hand on the wall beside the cell, meeting Liege stare for stare and wishing she knew how to read the truth out of him. "But he _was_ Megatronus's. Until he wasn't," she says, probing. "As Chela was Kathikon's. Until he wasn't."

Liege arches one brow, and says, "Curious, how these things fall out."

His tone and his expression give her nothing to work with. A complete non-answer.

Windvoice curls her fingers against the wall. She lets her gaze drop as she searches for words, and finds herself distracted by the play of light off the metal fabric of Liege Maximo's cape.

Better than nothing. And she _is_ curious. "May I read your cloak?" she asks, moving her hand to hover over the security panel.

Someone behind her trips over their own feet while standing still.

Liege pauses. "I don't know. _Can_ you?" he challenges, his tone too neutral to call it derisive.

Let him underestimate her. Windvoice activates the security panel and shuts the laser bars of the cell down so she can step through.

"Hang on," Chromia exclaims. When she goes to hit the security panel, Windvoice guards it with a hand.

"Ma'am. This is, on so many levels, _super_ not safe," Fireflight adds, emphatically.

She turns and smiles at them both. "I'll be fine."

Chromia takes longest to stare down; Fireflight and Silverbolt both look away, uncertain but deferring to her judgement, while Chromia looks incredulous. Windvoice feels a pang at her expression, but explaining everything right now - in front of Liege himself - would take too long.

Finally, with a deep vent, Chromia steps back. She follows Windvoice into the cell and glares at Liege. Windvoice kneels behind Liege Maximo, keenly aware of his optics following her until she's directly in his blind spot.

It's been a while since Windvoice did a close reading of a memory cloak. The holy relics of the Way of Flame she can identify on sight, through long exposure. Interpreting a weave that she's never seen before is trickier. To read the full extent of the message requires activating the same nervecircuits in the fingers and palms used to speak hand. There's an extra layer of discomfort in trying to read it while someone's actually _wearing_ it, too; she's hyper aware of Liege Maximo mere centimeters from her as she carefully pulls the cape away from his back and shoulders and stretches it flat.

She's not sure what she expects to find. Something – most likely an energy blade – sliced through the tattered hem, melting and disrupting the data stored at the edges, but the rest of the fabric is in better shape. It's probably too much to hope that Liege Maximo knitted himself a cape detailing his master plan to subvert the Primes and conquer the galaxy. That would be far too convenient and melodramatic. (She still struggles not to roll her eyes when she catches a glimpse of Starscream's old purple cloak wadded up under one of his datapad shelves.)

But instead she just gets random glyphs. Fragments of sentences and concepts. No matter what direction she traces the weave – vertically from top to bottom is the most common arrangement on Caminus, but Old Cybertronian favored boustrophedon – she can't seem to find the start, or even a common thread in the jumble of words. [σιδηρομήτωρ], she picks out, and [oldest], but nothing coherent, nothing of substance. When she sharpens the focus of her optics, frowning, she can't find any artistic design in the cloak itself, either. There's one tapestry in the cityspeaker temple that forms the face of Caminus rendered solely in the glyphs and subglyphs that make up his name, the color and metal composition of the wires chosen purely for aesthetic beauty.

This isn't even a cape of lies; it's just gibberish.

Windvoice lets the hem of the fabric slide out of her fingers, at a loss. She'd been so sure. Not sure enough to call it an echo of Vigilem, but certain enough to call it intuition. And yet…

Liege Maximo shifts. Even this close, his EM field is a smooth, opaque wall of ice that barely reaches her sensors, unreadable and coolly analytical. Perhaps the cloak is meant to be the same – something unreadable, neutral, so that no one could glean his personal motivations when he maneuvered politically.

Wait.

Windvoice resets her optics and draws back. Before Liege Maximo can move again and dismiss her, she takes up the metal weave again and runs the sensors of her hand along it in one wide, encompassing sweep. Sparks pop from her fingers and wrists as she boosts the circuits as far as they'll go.

This is Grimlock. Syllables and subglyphs chosen not just for their meaning, but the sounds that they form to recreate language. It's a broken Titan, hunting for words, seeking understanding, connecting and layering together whatever they can reach to form a new whole. It's Caminus's face formed from his name.

And she knows what Vigilem didn't say.

"You were in love with both of them," she says. Her fingers feel numb as she lets the cloak fall again. It's not some master plan emblazoned across his back – it's Solus and Megatronus together, hundreds of thousands of words intended for them layered over one another, and Liege himself woven in between. It's millions of years of mourning and missing them. They were there, together, in orbit with each other like a trinary star system – and then they were gone –

Liege rips away; it happens so fast that the cloak seems to blink out of existence for a moment. Then he whips around, golden optics startled wide as he stares at her like she's the mystery here, not him. The chains are still wound around his wrists but Chromia shouts, alarmed, and lunges forward.

"What," he whispers, "did Vigilem tell you."

His voice cracks. And oh Solus, she doesn't think he or Vigilem ever lied. Liege loved both of them, and when they died, he tore the world apart.

Windvoice stumbles back, staggering on one knee before she finds her footing. Liege watches her go, still staring; she raises a hand to wave Chromia back. Her throat feels choked. "I -" she starts to say, but she needs to look anywhere but at Liege. She can't imagine what her face looks like. The same as Liege's, probably. When she reaches out, desperately, Chromia is there to take her by the hand and half-guide, half-drag her from the cell. Windvoice's feet remember how to work together by the time they reach Silverbolt and Fireflight, both bristling as they keep weapons trained on Liege Maximo. "- we have to go – the meeting -" she manages.

Silverbolt presses a hand to the security panel, and the bright red bars resume their place between them and Liege Maximo. He's tense; Fireflight is almost bouncing with repressed energy. Battle instincts wired into them, in a way they aren't for Chromia. "Of course, Speaker," Silverbolt says, tersely. "Are you -"

"Fine," Windvoice interrupts. Fine could mean anything. Her voice barely sounds like her own. "We need to go."

\---

_Boom goes the dynamite!_

 

\- [Brian of Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_goes_the_dynamite)

\---

Starscream slides into their group out of nowhere. Windvoice is - unfocused. Normally she's more aware of her surroundings in Metroplex than that. Chromia's worried, hissed whispers seem to go in one audial and out the other, but Windvoice doesn't know what to do to soothe her fears. Not when everything is so upside down, and it takes everything in her power to keep her EM field smooth and her face a polite mask as they near the Council chambers.

How is she supposed to be a lake when she feels like the water scalded her all over?

"Anything we can work with?" Starscream says, conversationally. His droll, acerbic note cuts through the shocked daze, and Windvoice forces herself to the present. Of course he knows.

They're almost at the Council. Shoulders straight. Wings neutral. Calm.

"That depends on whether we can trust Liege Maximo and Vigilem to tell the truth or not," she replies, her attempt at irony undercut somewhat by the way her voice wobbles on the first words.

Starscream glances at her sharply. She thinks she has her field tamped down so that all she's projecting is a neutral buzz, but what he picks up must be worse than she thought. He buries a face in one hand and snaps the fingers of the other, opening a comm line. "Oh, _fantastic_. Data packet, now. We don't have time to talk."

She'd prefer to show him. This - all of this - is the sort of thing that needs to be _shared_ , and she strongly sympathizes with Vigilem and his millions of years of lonely, fermenting isolation. But offering Starscream an interface cable so he can experience the memories up close in personal is so far beyond their level of trust that it's ridiculous.

So the data packet she sends him over comms is a misshapen, compressed shadow of what it could be. It includes everything - Elita, Vigilem, her discussion with Blackarachnia concerning Airachnid's influence, and the interaction with Liege just now. The only thing she omits is the conversation with Blackarachnia concerning the ancillary processors in her back. That's something she can't deal with right now - too personal, too close. "Got it?" she asks.

When it hits his inbox and he extracts the files, Starscream stops. Windvoice keeps going. Cybertronians, she's found, process files obscenely fast. Much like the high levels of hypervigilance prevalent throughout the war's traumatized survivors, it's not something she envies them.

"… _Unbelievable_ ," Starscream mutters, and then storms forward to catch up. Chromia grits her teeth when Starscream falls in beside Windvoice, her jaw clicking audibly.

"You've had a lot to deal with. I didn't want to put more stress on you than I had to," Windvoice says, by way of explanation.

"But it's fine now?" Starscream says, sarcastically. He rolls his eyes, but he's all business when he adds, "Don't say a _word_ about this to Elita-1."

"You don't have to tell me twice."

"…We really trust Starscream now?" Chromia asks, skeptically. She doesn't bother lowering her voice.

A smile cracks through Windvoice's rigid mask. "The more I trust him, the more it annoys him. It's the little things," she says, playfully knocking the back of her knuckles against Starscream's chest.

He sniffs and turns up his nose at both of them. "Ridiculous."

Chromia blinks.

But then they're around the corner, and Windvoice hauls the mantle of Speaker on as she schools her expression as the Council representatives clustered outside the chamber come into view.

True to form, the Mistress of Flame is in high form. With two Primes to work with, Windvoice cringes to think how the Mistress might spin this in her favor. "- You should show some respect and know your place. It is not for us to presume to understand the will of a Prime; only to interpret it," she's saying, her voice cool and lofty, as she pins the other delegate with a piercing stare.

Knock Out's laugh is deliberately raucous and scathing. Moonracer stands calmly at his side, in contrast to Knock Out's aggressive disdain as he flips a hand at the Mistress. "Yeah, that's not how the real world works. Or this Council. We've got _things_ to do, and I for one am not letting some aft who rolled up in a giant eyeball dictate Velocitron's future for us." Then he spies Windvoice coming down the corridor; his expression remains just as impatient. "There you are."

"We agree, naturally. We don't need two Primes mucking around in Council business," Starscream says, smoothly, with a simpering smile for the Mistress of Flame.

Starscream's petty jibe is technically sacrilege on Caminus, and Windvoice has the feeling that he knows it and did it to antagonize the Mistress on purpose. She shoots him a look, but he disregards it, his optics glittering with spite as the Mistress's lip curls.

Before the Mistress can respond, however, Elita-1 pushes forward. Obsidian and Strika flank her, one on either side, Strika far more intimidating in person after several months of contacting the Carcerians primarily through a screen. The Devisens have to scramble back out of the way to avoid getting knocked into the wall. "Is Liege Maximo secure?" Elita demands, leaning aggressively close to Windvoice's face. Ironically, Starscream and Chromia's engines start growling at the same time.

 _Oh no. "_ As secure as we can make him," Windvoice says.

"He should be turned over to us. We are his rightful wardens, by ancient decree."

Slag it. Windvoice whips around, taking in the Council members around them - no Onyx - and then grasps Elita's shoulder to tug her down. Elita's close enough already that she can't protest it; her blue optics narrow, flashing, but she lets Windvoice whisper directly into her cracked audial. "Elita. I am being completely honest with you right now," Windvoice says, urgency leaking into her voice. "Something is _very wrong_."

Elita-1 goes perfectly still. Her broad shoulders obscure Windvoice's view of the rest of the Council, her EM field unreadable.

Then Elita draws back up to her full height, her expression set. "I see," she says, grimly. "I expect details shortly." She glances at Obsidian, who nods at some unspoken signal. A flurry of motion erupts at the far end of the hall, and Windvoice raises her head to see Onyx and Optimus, striding not quite in sync as they sweep toward the chamber doors.

"Can you teach me that trick?" Starscream murmurs.

She resists the urge to elbow him in the side with a heroic force of will. "Tell the truth more often. It'll do you good."

Elita snorts; Obsidian covers a noise of his own by clearing his vocalizer.

Starscream pretends to gag. "Eugh."

"I would speak with you alone, Prime," Onyx Prime is saying. Once again, when they reach the Council, his deep red optics rake across them - and find them all wanting.

Enough of that. Windvoice steps forward. She must not falter; this is no longer just her life on her line, but the legitimacy of the Council itself as a governing body. "I'm afraid not. We appreciate your assistance in capturing Liege Maximo, but if there are matters concerning all of Neo-Cybertron or the colony Titans, the Council of Worlds must be involved. Optimus is not Neo-Cybertron's leader and holds no official rank or capacity here -"

Onyx clicks his vocalizer - a long, rattling sound deep in his throat, a cross between a laugh and one of the non-sentient birds she once heard in Eukaris's jungles. "Governments come and go. Primes are forever," he says, oblivious to the way literally every Council delegate except the Mistress of Flame bristles at his tone. "I understand there is a Council, now. Your efforts to unite our sundered tribes are admirable, but who ultimately bears responsibility for Cybertron's fall? You have neglected your world, Prime."

Then Onyx stalks through the Council chamber doors ahead of them, waving the heavy door aside with ease, his interlaced wings lifted high as he strides through the simple, minimalist Council chambers. The old chamber blew up when Blast Off planted a bomb; Windvoice took advantage of that to find a space not decorated by Starscream, and some of the interior design-inclined Camiens who remained on Neo-Cybertron gave this room a sleek overhaul, with slightly lower seats, dark metal panels inset in the walls where art holos might hang in a similar Camien space, and translucent sliding doors with a lattice of metal on the far wall that are open to reveal a view of the city below. They haven't made use of this chamber with the full Council yet; Windvoice can hear the noises of the cities through the open window, and wonders who last left it open.

Optimus cycles a vent, then stops in the center of the room rather than taking up a seat around the oval of tables. "I respect the Council of World's authority as a governing body. Though I may disagree with how its affairs have been handled in the past, the Primes I have known have proven as fallible and corrupt as any other Cybertronian," he says, to Onyx's back. Windvoice would almost be heartened by Optimus's efforts to recognize the Council - but Onyx is distant, idly inspecting the chamber with an unimpressed expression. And Optimus is still falling into that trap of engaging with Onyx himself, rather than letting the Council handle it. "At the moment, I represent no world here save Earth. Anything you have to say to me should also be said to them. If I have neglected any duty on Cybertron, I did so in the belief that my presence was too divisive after the war for a true ceasefire to be achieved."

"So defensive. And yet here you are." Onyx's beak snaps shut over his face, and for an instant Windvoice catches a glimpse of the avian form he could take. The deep-set eyes under the hooded brow of his alt are shadowed as he looks back at them. "But I was not referring to you alone. Liege Maximo, Prime of Lies, splintered us when we were at our zenith. And now, in our long absence…someone has killed our world."

His eyes fall on _her_ -

\- and Windvoice goes very cold. She, Starscream, Chromia, Silverbolt, and Fireflight are almost to Neo-Cybertron's seat, nearest the window and opposite the main door, and she has an excellent view of the way the Mistress of Flame brushes her cape back and sits with a flourish, unable to keep the satisfaction from her posture.

Optimus holds his ground. "Unicron did, yes," he says, gravely, without looking in Windvoice's direction. "I have sent word to Alpha Trion of your arrival."

Onyx clicks his vocalizer, but merely turns to keep Windvoice in sight. "Trion is another face I have not seen in some time. Once, we all worked to unite Cybertron together," he says, before striking one hoof against the floor with intent. His voice rises to a thunderous, rumbling cry. "Speaker Windvoice. Can you deny that you betrayed Cybertron and permitted its destruction in the jaws of Death itself? I would see justice done, and you and Liege tried for your crimes."

Chromia's hand tightens on her arm. Starscream's gone very still; none of them have taken their seats. Windvoice feels transfixed, pinned in place at the fore of the room with Optimus and Onyx center stage. The other Council members are equally stricken - some whispering furiously amongst themselves, others just staring - but Onyx charges forward without waiting for them to catch up.

Chromia wouldn't have told him anything. Nor Arcee. _How does Onyx have this information?_

Her voice doesn't waver. She has to dredge deep to summon her Speaker voice, but she pours it out, strident, firm. She lays a hand on her desk without sitting; with Onyx's overwhelming height, she doesn't think she can afford to sit down and take what a Prime can dish out. "Cybertron was already long dead. But it is not gone. We are healing, and rebuilding. And Liege Maximo has already been tried and punished for his crimes." Her gaze flicks toward Elita.

But just because she's given the Carcerians some warning doesn't mean Elita won't side with someone who could return Liege - and even Vigilem - to her custody. To her credit Elita's expression is stony, her arms folded over her chest as she glares at Onyx.

The Mistress of Flame cuts in before Elita can say anything. "You speak out of turn, Speaker. The Council is already here to consider the question of the charges against you. That yet another Prime acknowledges your failings weighs heavily against." The Mistress looks resplendent, lit from within by her own fervor as she condemns Windvoice with her eyes. If she is a little too eager, it's not as though her tittering attendants would recognize it as anything other than zealous faith in the presence of a Prime. _Two_ Primes.

The Mistress will lend Optimus and Onyx all the spiritual weight they need to overshadow the Council, if the others don't rally somehow.

Onyx stalks closer. He seems to disproportionately loom over the room; Windvoice can't remember how to vent properly, and her chest is so tight. "'Elected Speaker,' you say," Onyx continues, with a dismissive flick of his claw. "And this is the failure of what you call democracy. That someone such as you could be elevated by the blind masses after committing such an atrocity only confirms this for me. We Primes shall correct this."

"We do not agree."

Onyx freezes. Slowly, so slowly, his piercing gaze turns, the sharp blades of his wings poised, until his optics fix on Airazor.

She's alone at her Council seat, and sitting. She keeps her dark claws folded in front of her on the desk, her green optics bright and unwavering as she meets Onyx's stare. She does not bend, or falter. "Eukaris stands with Speaker Windvoice, and will continue to do so," she says. As though it's simply a given. A fact.

"You would defy your own Prime?" The Mistress of Flame's voice is high, disdainful but ardent. Windvoice heard a variant of it so many times in high ceremonies on Caminus. "Tch."

Airazor continues to stare Onyx down. The prolonged eye contact starts to raise a prickle of disquiet along Windvoice's sensors - or perhaps that's the leading crest of Onyx Prime's EM field, potent but unreadable as he scrutinizes Airazor.

But Airazor concedes no ground, and finally Onyx breaks eye contact with one last cutting stare. "We shall discuss the matter of your insubordination, as well as the death of Chela, in due time," he says, coldly.

Airazor's expression twitches, one step off from an outright glare.

"Bomb," Starscream says, abruptly.

It's so random that Windvoice just…blinks. He says it at a perfectly normal volume after being silent through this whole nightmarish turn of events; only the people in their vicinity notice. Windvoice turns her head to look at him, confused, and sees Starscream staring straight ahead past Onyx and Optimus to the open door. His purple optics are round, the rest of his face slack with disbelief - like he can't believe the word that just came out of his own mouth.

"What?" Windvoice says, at a loss.

That seems to knock Starscream out of his stupor. His whole face ripples with shock, fury, and then -"Not _again_. Bomb!" he yells, so that the rest of the room flinches and refocuses on him.

"Is this a joke? It is _not_ in good taste, Starscream," Knock Out says, mouth curled downward in disdain.

The Mistress of Flame shakes her head, derisively. "Or have you simply gone mad again -"

\- and -

\- then the world is screaming, and burning, and shattering -

\- half the outer walls torn open like someone's torso, and she can see sky, and an eye that won't stop spinning overhead -

\- the shockwave hits her, belatedly, and _slams_ through her as she lays there on the floor, ringing in her ears -

\- and she abruptly remembers _she was not alone_.

"Chromia! Starscream?" Windvoice tries to yell. Everything feels horribly muted in her audial sensors; she tries to call again, and gags, twisting with agony in her side to vomit up sparks that leave her throat raw. She drags herself forward, but something heavy's on her wing, and she _can't move_ \- "Chromia!"

Something shakes her. She whips around, and nearly purges her tanks as the world swims around her. The walls are shredded with shrapnel, fire popping and spitting where the inner wires and sensors of Metroplex's poor walls took damage, and only after another horrible, hollow five seconds does her vestibular system settle, and her optics can fix on Starscream. He's half leaning on her wing like a sack of slag - aft - his armor streaked with black but mostly intact. For some reason there's bright fuchsia energon all down his torso - it still doesn't quite elicit the same visceral response from her as blue energon does, because it looks so strange, but she thinks that'll be fixed after this nightmare. He flicks his own audial, pointedly, and snaps his fingers twice more before Windvoice realizes comms are working, but she can't hear a word as he mouths swear words at her.

SS: Our audials are all rebooting. _Honestly_. If you keep carrying on like this, people will talk.

WV: Starscream, what -

Then she tries to drag her wing out from under him - she needs to move, she needs - to find everyone else, find out if Chromia is alright in all this rubble - and Starscream winces as his weight resettles. The energon's leaking from his torso in fresh bubbles: this time, Windvoice sees the strut that's impaled right through Starscream's stomach.

SS: Oh, fantastic. Lovely. 

She extricates herself, finally, and ignores the throbbing pain crawling up her side. Her head is hollow and too full at the same time, her sensors completely inundated on every level, so that all she can do is absorb the input without being able to make sense of the scene around her. A familiar figure in red and white lays crumpled to their right, arm torn clean off and a wing twisted around against the transformation seam, but she presses her hand over Starscream's wound instead, trying to stabilize it or - something. Can't pull it out, that'll only remove pressure from any severed fuel lines, no matter how woozy the sight makes her.

WV: Fireflight. 

SS: I guarantee you – we've all had worse. Ugh. What a mess. 

Her hands are covered in energon now. Windvoice tears her gaze away and tries to look around the room. Nothing resolves itself; it's all a shattered mess of angles and light that won't form objects or people. Something is racing inside her processor, a piercing hum that lines everything with pink. How hard did she hit her head?

WV: I…where is Chromia… 

She sags. Starscream twitches when her weight presses on his torso, and she feels him try to shake her shoulder again from a very long way off. The corners of her vision are fuzzy, the darkness eating across her eyes like static on a screen.

SS: Oh great. 

SS: Listen to me. Outside the room. Aira-

SS: - done this before, with Blast Off. 

SS: Don't fall a-!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /strips everything related to Onyx visiting Caminus/Camiens visiting his rust planet because it's nonsensical/ This Is Fine


	7. Chapter 7

\---

 _you filled yourself up with so much light,_  
_you forgot about the shadows that'd follow,_  
_so you blew a kiss to the stars,_  
_and asked them: how do I survive?_  
_and they answered: it's simple. you                                                                       burn._

\- [k.s.](http://worthystevie.tumblr.com/) of Tempo, << and you have been dying ever since>>

\---

A faint buzz crawls dizzily through her helm. Not quite pain, but strong enough that her gut churns with a dim, persistent nausea. Numbness delays the reboot of her primary sensors, her mouth tastes staticky and foul, and by the time Windvoice's optics open, she recognizes the sensation of Cybertronian-grade pain killers, twice as strong as anything used on Caminus. It didn't agree with her system the first time she got blown up, and it doesn't agree with her now. Passing out again sounds like a grand idea by the time she pushes through the numb, smothering sensation constricting her spark.

She expects to wake up to the hospital - to Ratchet if she's unlucky, to Wheeljack if they're swamped. But the ceiling is familiar is a perfectly wrong way, and Windvoice stares at it blankly for five seconds before the buzz resolves itself in her ear, and she recognizes the humming frequency of prison bars.

When she bolts upright - immediately regretting it, her mind spinning in a wave of pain, nausea, and warning alerts - the sound doesn't register in her left audial. Only operating at 20% capacity; when she checks, she finds only a patch job over the spiderweb of cracks from the bomb's concussive force. Most of her frame is intact, the worst of the damage repaired with welds, though her outermost armor feels half-seared and her internals are all one big dent.

The two mecha standing guard outside the cell aren't medics, either. As if she'd ever forget the anonymous beetle-black chassis of the Badgeless.

 _No_.

Windvoice rakes her hand over her helm again, and this time realizes what's missing - the compact plug-in of the Creation Lathe. Her hand skates over the open port in her temple, the gap like an open wound. She freezes for half a second, spark pounding in her chest, and then rolls off the bed in a burst of energizing panic. "What is this?" she says to the Badgeless's backs. Something pinches in her left side - that old, deep puncture where a fragment from Chromia's bomb cut into protoform-deep wires - and she doubles up with a gasp, applying pressure to the new patch over the old wound to relieve the knot of pain. "Where's…the Council? What's happened?" she asks, urgency in her wobbly voice. Her vocalizer probably needs a hard reboot, too, but she's dizzy enough as is without adding more to her processor's plate. Her alarm burns through the last of the numbness, leaving her mind clear but scraped dry.

The Badgeless on the right glances at their fellow before answering her in a voice rendered low and artificial by a voice anonymizer. She can't recognize either of them inside the armor - which was exactly the point when Starscream put his secret police together. "Things've changed," the Badgeless croaks, their visor not quite meeting Windvoice's eye.

_No, no, no._

Another wince as her side knots up; Windvoice presses the side of her closed fist against her forehead, the upper edge of her knuckle digging in. "Am I under arrest? I need to speak with Ironhide," she says, firmly. Her voice cuts out again, undermining her desired effect.

The Badgeless shuffles their weight, chances another look at their partner, then lapses back into silence.

She waits the first hour standing so close to the bars she can feel the laser sizzling along already raw neurocircuitry.

After that, she accepts that the Badgeless won't answer. She eases back down onto the berth wedged against the wall, folds her hands together, and presses them to her mouth.

It hurts. More than she wants to admit.

The nausea of the painkillers lingers, a low-level queasiness that makes her feel sick at spark. The main prison has never been located in Metroplex proper - a holdover from Starscream's policy that they couldn't risk Metroplex's power cutting out and releasing the inmates - and so the wall at her back is cold, dead metal, still, and horribly silent.

She waits for Chromia's small voice in the back of her head to tell her, ' _I told you so_.'

It never comes.

-

She takes the risk of rebooting everything that needs to reset and recalibrate after the explosion and apparently aborted medical care; it's not as though she's going anywhere for the foreseeable future. As predicted, the strain knocks her out again - her chronometer informs her that she only loses approximately a half hour to the churning reboot, and she has no reason to believe that the chronometer's damaged. She wakes up stiff, the last of the painkillers finally filtered out of her system, and with a hollow sensation where the Lathe should be. Or at least the old merge port cover - tucked away in one of her drawers at home, gathering dust.

She also wakes up alone. This time, when she limps up to the front of the cell, the Badgeless are absent: she appears to be alone in this particular cellblock, the cells opposite her empty as far down the row as she can see.

Odd. It's not that big of a prison. Surely someone else must be in earshot - even if only one of the long-term residents carrying over their sentence from Old Cybertron.

She can think of several reasons why Starscream might want her in an isolated cellblock, without guards or witnesses. She's learned that much from him, at least. Her energy blades won't activate under the prison's dampeners.

And she'd still trusted him.

"Pssst! Speaker! Over here!"

The whisper carries through the echoing cellblock; Windvoice winces on reflex.

Then, out of nowhere, a blur of pale teal and white skids to a soundless stop before her, one knee and one hand down to brake. Transmutate's red optics are a bright blur, her aerodynamic armor shifted subtly so that she looks sleeker, sharper, her neck and limbs elongated.

Windvoice crowds as close to the bars as she can, mind racing. If there's any chance of someone talking… "Transmutate. What happened, after the explos-"

Transmutate interrupts her, talking so fast Windvoice's single audial struggles to compensate. "No time!" sounds more like a single syllable than a phrase.

Then Transmutate smacks a security chip against the cell's security panel lightning fast, palming the card again before the bars vanish. She pushes a cluster of small objects into Windvoice's loose hands and closes limp fingers for her before Windvoice catches up - and then just as fast Transmutate steps back and tags the security panel again. "Starscream says to trust him," she says, with a wild grin that's meant to be reassuring.

Windvoice stares at her in blank incomprehension. "Oh. He's actually lost his mind," she says, at last.

Transmutate shakes with muted laughter, dropping into a racer's stance even as she adds, "And you're supposed to think big. Er. 'Go big or go home!'" The correction has the odd cadence of an Earth quote, which just makes Windvoice blink harder. Then Transmutate snaps a single finger gun at her and takes off, her wheels smoking a little before she vanishes in a pale blur. "Good luck!"

Far too late - only a matter of nanoseconds too late - Windvoice finishes resetting her optics in surprise. "Wait!" she calls, nonplussed, one hand freezing inches from the cell bars before she can fry herself by mistake. Within moments the cellblock's vacant again, Transmutate's passage so quick and silent that she hasn't even left skid marks on the floor.

Windvoice looks down at the items in her hand. One is the Creation Lathe, a dark gold in the half-light of the cell; the other is the merge port cover she'd just been thinking of, a simpler pin with two golden prongs. The third is her half-used tin of red face paint, with a scribble of Transmutate's winking face stuck to the cap.

…Exactly what in the pit is Starscream playing at?

"Unbelievable," Windvoice mutters. After a moment's consideration, she slides the Creation Lathe into a subspace compartment in her uninjured side and affixes the pin over the open port. She'd still had the Lathe plugged in when the bomb went off; she doesn't know how, when, or why Starscream would've bothered to confiscate it, or what its return means, but he wouldn't have had Transmutate bring both pins back without a reason. Possibly an incredibly paranoid, silly reason. But a reason.

Carefully, with the paint tin's mirror balanced on her hand, Windvoice fixes the smudged, dust-smeared streaks of her face. No white - not for a long time - but she does feel better once her face looks like her own again, and not like she was nearly blown up for the second time in her life. A faint tremor runs through her hand at the memory, but she could apply the thin blade of a line under her optics half-dead.

Even now, she has to stop her hand from adding the downward strokes. Caminus's face, or Vigilem's. The old, comforting familiarity of Caminus's mask especially is a temptation at the moment.

She stows the paint tin in subspace as well, and waits, her legs folded under her as the hours stretch on.

-

When the Badgeless return, neither of them mentions the odd gap in their security coverage. Windvoice isn't sure, but she thinks they're the same pair as before. She doubts it's a coincidence that they left long enough for Transmutate to smuggle something to her - which again raises the question of what Starscream's game is, here. If Transmutate's visit was him trying to _help…_

What exactly are they dealing with, out there?

"Hands out. No funny business," one Badgeless says in a dry monotone.

Windvoice closes her hands into fists. She lets them cuff her with heavy electronic restraints that snap shut with a quiet _clink_ and lead her out, past an entire cellblock that is _still_ completely empty. "Why is Starscream doing this?" she asks - both out of genuine concern and to keep up appearances - as the Badgeless walk her out a side door and into a secure walkway between buildings. They're not unnecessarily rough, but they don't slow for her to keep up with them, either.

"Come on," the other Badgeless says, without answering. Every non-answer is another piece of a puzzle she can't figure out.

Two turns and three doors later, the Badgeless guide Windvoice into another nondescript hall. Except - she straightens, clenching her fists again as she recognizes the walls. They're crossed over into Metroplex. Censere, she could get lost in if she got turned around enough. Metroplex is unmistakable. Are his sensors active in this particular quadrant? She combs through her memory, scanning the floors and ceilings for indicator marks as they move deeper into Metroplex's frame. She _does_ recognize this area -

"- have Caminus's gratitude, Prime," a familiar voice murmurs, around the corner.

For the first time, Windvoice stops cold. The Badgeless on her right grunts in surprise when they run into her wing; they don't shove her into motion, but it's a near thing. Her steps falter as they march her the rest of the way, one with a hand clamped on her shoulder to keep her upright and steer her as they enter the space bridge chamber. Metroplex - Metroplex does have sensors here, but what could he do -

The Mistress of Flame waits with a full escort and honors: a battalion of guards in formation behind her, a cluster of lower priestesses in ambers and reds, and the reclusive Matriarch of Incaendium a half step behind her left hand, her hooded cloak a swirl of crimson to complement the Mistress's gold.

"Naturally," Onyx Prime says, his rich voice right on the edge between generosity and indifference. With his forelegs tucked in so that he balances on the second pair, his wings arcing out so that they fill a quarter of the room, he dwarfs the Mistress of Flame. Windvoice, coming up to the Mistress's torso and no further, could stand in his palm easily. His doubled optics sweep over the Mistress's head, glancing only briefly at Windvoice before dismissing her. The upper pair glitter, as unreadable as before.

But even his imposing presence can't overset the familiar figure smirking at his side. Starscream simpers, his optics wide and full of malicious laughter as he gestures the Badgeless forward. "Come on, we don't have all day," he says, haughtily. His EM field is so thick with self-satisfaction that her tanks turn.

She can't look at him. Whatever he's doing. She can't. Instead, Windvoice swallows her nausea and meets the Mistress of Flame stare for stare. She won't bend her neck, if this is what she thinks it is. The Badgeless push her forward at the very end, so that she stumbles a little in front of everyone there. "Mistress," she says, focused on the smooth ivory metal in the corner of the Mistress's optic.

The Mistress of Flame has nothing but cool disdain for the Badgeless. She nods her head to her own honor guard as they take custody of Windvoice. "Silence her," the Mistress instructs. Onyx looks vaguely amused, while Starscream preens, his smile cloyingly smug as the Praetoria check the restraints on her wrists. One of the guard comes forward, a heavy loop of metal in hand, and for the first time Windvoice can't repress the instinct to struggle; she wrenches away, tearing her helm loose from the hands that come up to hold it in place, but the collar latches around her neck too easily, the mask clamped over her mouth so she can't even mouth words when the collar mutes her vocalizer. "I will hear no more of your blasphemies."

Starscream sighs contentedly. "What a shame," he says, tipping his head to the side and pretending to listen. "Ah. Music to my ears."

The Mistress of Flame's mouth curls downward in disapproval as her cold gaze flickers toward Starscream. "Lord Prime," she says. She bows deeply to Onyx, reverent servant-to-Prime, her cloak swept out behind her in an elegant flourish. "Once our justice has been done, we will return to hear your word. We pray that the Eukarians recognize where their loyalties truly lie."

Onyx does not preen. He accepts the bow with a stately nod, his optics narrowed with amusement at someone's expense. Everyone in the honor guard bows with the Mistress. Windvoice might be the only one to see it.

Her eyes dart to Starscream. He doesn't even look at her; he's too busy staring up at Onyx with obsequious admiration.

As Onyx turns, his grand wings sweeping behind him like a living lattice, Starscream walks ingratiatingly close, his wings a-flutter. The Badgeless fall in with him with a careless twirl of his finger. "Now. Optimus, on the other hand -"

And then they're both gone, Starscream's low murmur lost in the echoes of Metroplex's halls. Windvoice stumbles when the Praetoria haul her around, craning her neck around to try to divine Starscream's purpose from the back of his head.

But there's only bitter confusion, and the sting of betrayal. When the Mistress of Flame steps before the space bridge the honor guard reshuffles into place behind her. The guards force Windvoice into place on the Mistress's other side, across from the silent Matriarch. At the controls, Apocrypha is trembling, her ventilations tight and optics wide with panic as she keys in the relevant coordinates.

No one stops them.

Without the Lathe, the space bridge's resonance is little more than a blast of static on her sensors as the white-blue light brightens. A dull throb pulses in Windvoice's head, the queasiness a clot in her throat, but purging her tanks just became a much more involved endeavor, and she won't break. Not in front of the Mistress. At Apocrypha's shaky nod and strangled affirmation, they start forward; because of her position, Windvoice is the third one through -

A hard _pop -_

[- voice?]

[You _idiot!_ Don't let them through!]

[???]

-

It takes too long.

A Titan's space bridge is a nearly instantaneous form of travel. She's used them often enough to be familiar with the sensation. Yet this time, the drag is palpable; Windvoice can't feel her frame, or the hands on her arms, but she can _feel_ the thunder roiling around them as an unnamable force attempts to draw them back.

_Metroplex._

He's going to hurt himself. She can _feel_ it, with horrible shudder of her spark. A Titan's spark and space bridge are inextricable, and Metroplex [would bleed his own spark dry to keep her safe], but those are not his words, those are _hers_ -

[Let me go!] she screams back, terrified. She can't wrench away - there's nothing solid about space bridge travel - but this contradictory effort could kill Metroplex in seconds. Titans can't survive spontaneous spark collapse any better than Cybertronians can. Nothing for her to grab onto, nothing -

\- except a chord that resonates on a familiar frequency. She's known it longer than she's known Metroplex; it sings like Vigilem, like her.

[Caminus!]

[. . .]

-

And they snap into solidity, on the far side of Caminus's space bridge.

Everyone staggers; at least Windvoice isn't alone in that. The Mistress of Flame remains upright, her fingers clenched around her staff of office, while the Matriarch on her far side sags under her hood, slowly shaking her head to clear it. Three priestesses and two of the guard lurch out of formation to vomit, while two others collapse onto their knees in immediate stasis from the shock. Five members of the rearguard arrive after a noticeable pause, whole but shaken, and Caminus's bridge spits sparks that ghost up into the clear, cool sky. Her chronometer says it's Camien dawn - but of course, with their star long faded, that's merely a holdover tradition from when they had a regular day-night cycle, millions of years ago.

Windvoice doesn't recognize anyone in the guard squad who waited to meet them; they look disturbed, and shoot furtive looks at Windvoice like she's the one to blame for the abnormal crossing as they help gather the unconscious priestesses. As soon as everyone's accounted for, the Mistress of Flame leads them down the steps of the open-air plaza, without acknowledging the incident. "She is to be under guard at all times. The Praetoria has no higher priority than this," she instructs the lead Praefecta, Lex Magna - Windvoice hadn't even recognized her, so caught up in everything else going so wrong. Lex Magna nods sharply, with clear-eyed resolve.

No sign of the Torchbearers, who once would've served as the Mistress of Flame's personal honor guard in matters like these. Still on Earth?

Windvoice can't concentrate on that. It's hard to concentrate on anything at all; the nausea in her chest squeezes out everything else, as they lead her down the great central road that runs from Cordis's heart to the sacred precinct. The cityspeaker temple rises on the left side of the heavy pillars of the Way of Flame's main temple; the sight of its familiar red curves and tiered roofs, Caminus's face worked into the building itself, sends a pang through her spark. Despite the unnatural emptiness of the precinct, Windvoice spies the dots of pale faces peering through the windows. The main center for cityspeakers lays further to the east along the great road, near Caminus's main processor: most of those here in Cordis are teachers and apprentices.

All of them gawking at her, as she's brought home in chains.

\---

**И свет во тьме светит**

\- [and the light shines in the darkness](http://sunderedstar.tumblr.com/post/171355088296/dmitri-prigovs-visual-poetry)

\---

Apocrypha is having a good, quiet cry behind the terminal when she hears it.

_Tap. Tap. …Tap._

Blinking the static away from her fritzing optics, she peers around the side of the terminal and tries to clear her vocalizer so no one will know she's been crying back here for five minutes.

But no one's in the chamber that she can see. Those taps seemed to come from right over her helm…

Apocrypha slowly looks up.

A golden stranger grins down at her, and uses the misshapen staff of dark metal to tap the terminal's controls one more time.

Behind her, the space bridge hums. It's been crackling and rumbling ever since they dragged poor Speaker Windvoice away, a sickly shade of indigo, and Metroplex's upset is horribly contagious. But now the bridge begins to churn in a deliberate, familiar pattern.

"Excuse me? Ma'am? I don't think you're supposed to be in here," Apocrypha says, weakly, once she's gathered up her courage.

But the stranger taps away on her tiptoes, with a tiny spin that sends her skirt clattering as she faces the gate.

"Oh, don't fret," the Muse of Life says, her face lit up in the light of the space bridge. "Someone's coming home."

Then she's gone, and through, and Apocrypha is alone in the midst of Metroplex's ruminating heart.

-

Thirty seconds later, she hears the distinctive screech of speedster tires racing down the hallway. Nonplussed, Apocrypha stays crouched behind the terminal as a red, white, and black mech in alt mode skids wildly into the hall and drifts to a shrieking stop. He transforms and drops to his knees in despair at the sight of the crackling space bridge. "No! Nooooo! She was just here!" he insists, distraught. "I'm telling you!"

A red and white ambulance ambles in after him well after the fact, his expression completely flat and arms folded over his chest as he stares at the space bridge, unamused.

\---

_To her I dedicate all the sentences that have been darkening my walls. To her I dedicate all my bitter suns._

— Ananda Devi, <<[Eve Out of Her Ruins](https://books.google.com/books?id=ezaHDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=To+her+I+dedicate+all+my+bitter+suns.&source=bl&ots=SiYNI3c6o3&sig=w_VmcBpljt7CTkXo-CVdnIPXZ9M&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj49oyztOjbAhVKWq0KHYLIBLcQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=To%20her%20I%20dedicate%20all%20my%20bitter%20suns.&f=false)>>

\---

The priestesses return to the main temple to tend to the fallen, the silent Matriarch gliding in their wake; the Mistress of Flame and her guards file into the Praetoria's sanctuary instead. Not the Forgefire Parliament's secular prison, but a holy cell. Windvoice can't name off the top of her head the last person to be imprisoned here: blasphemy is a serious but very rare crime. The last time anyone was accused of on this level was during the tenure of the prior Mistress of Flame, who faded almost a million years ago.

The Creation Lathe seems to burn in her subspace like a small sun as the Praetoria confiscate her energy blades. But they don't think to check her subspace; the guards escort her into the cell as the Mistress of Flame looks on, and at Lex Magna's nod they remove the silencer so that Windvoice can speak. The scrambled connections between her processor and her vocalizer take a second to sort out; she coughs nonsense for a moment, gritting her teeth against the urge to glare up at the Mistress of Flame.

"Have you anything to say for yourself?" the Mistress of Flame says. Now that Windvoice is in hand, the tension that's plagued the Mistress eases. As if she half-anticipated some sort of interference on the way here. The flame-lit, dark metal hall doesn't refract and welcome light the way the other temples are designed to, so the torches around them cast deep shadows around the legs. It obscures the details of the Mistress's copper cloak.

She gets the impression that screaming "liar" might not be the most diplomatic approach. But they're _far_ past diplomacy, at this point, and Windvoice wants to _scream_. Enclosed spaces have never troubled her as deeply as they do more sensitive fliers, but between this and the cell earlier and the rawness around her neck, she's already at her limit. "Nothing you'd want anyone else to hear," she snaps, heatedly. She clenches her jaw, her eyes bright with fury. They've left her cuffed; even with the bars of the cell still open, she's trapped in here.

The Mistress of Flame takes her at her word. Holding up her hand, with narrowed eyes, she waves the rest of the Praetoria an elegant dismissal. One looks uncertain, glancing between Windvoice and the open door, but says nothing as their footsteps fade down the corridor. Lex Magna takes up a position at the end of the short, dark hall, the back of her crest outlined by the torch behind her head.

In spite of her carefully controlled mien, satisfaction lingers in the Mistress's smile. Exposure to Starscream on a daily basis has made Windvoice a qualified expert in identifying such things. It's such a far cry from the imperturbable, meticulously regal Mistress of Flame that Windvoice thought she'd known. The distant, unapproachable figure who led the Way of Flame, whose decision to choose Windblade to journey with Thunderclash was such an unexpected honor, from someone whose notice Windblade never thought she'd be worthy of.

She's close enough now to see that the Mistress is a mech, just like anyone else. Just as fallible.

"Why are you doing this?" Windvoice says, at last. Either the Mistress of Flame lied about Caminus, deliberately and with intent - or for some reason, she just couldn't bear the truth. The thought that Caminus himself might've sided with someone she'd deemed disrespectful and unfit. Everything since then has hinged on that: Windvoice's faith in Caminus, and the Mistress's decision to deny it, for her own political advantage.

A shake of that grand, sun-crowned head. "I remember a young cityspeaker. A voracious apprentice who threw herself into her studies so earnestly, with an unwavering passion. Young, but with such potential!" the Mistress of Flame says. Windvoice covers her surprise at the regret in those words. Then the Mistress tips her head to the side, judgment and cold disapproval in her eyes. "Perhaps too earnestly. Do you even realize how far you have fallen from your path?"

[Fallen] is a loaded word.

 _The path of a cityspeaker? I never left it_. "How far have you fallen from yours?" Windvoice fires back.

The Mistress slaps her.

It doesn't sting nearly as much as the first time. Physically, at least. Windvoice stays perfectly still, her helm frozen where the force of the blow knocked her sideways, and cycles a vent.

The Mistress of Flame draws herself up, every inch of her imposing height tuned to her advantage as she lifts her chin, but Windvoice is done letting such posturing intimidate her. She raises her head, the sting of the slap already a numb buzz through her anger. "Every day I ask myself whether what I've done is right. I look at my choices, and weigh what I've done, and try to do _better,_ every time _._ Is that the best argument you've got?" She doesn't recognize the laugh that cracks out of her throat. "All I have ever wanted was the truth."

All she receives is flat, haughty disdain, the Mistress's mouth an unimpressed line. "Where is the Creation Lathe?" she asks instead, with the dull boredom of someone who already knows the answer she wants to hear. She rests one hand on the edge of the cell door, as though toying with the idea of closing it herself.

 _I am a lake. A furious, boiling lake._ "Gone. Just like the Forge," Windvoice lies through her teeth. She wants to damn Starscream for driving her into this corner, with the Lathe in her hands, and a lie the only way she can see through this - but Starscream's not the one who brought them to this point. Maybe he was the first catalyst for all the infinite changes and upheaval that have upended everything Windvoice thought she knew.

But he taught her how to lie, for good or for worse, and when the Mistress of Flame sneers, it doesn't matter whether she truly believes Windvoice or not. "You would defile our heritage in this petulant fit of spite? This is what comes of consorting with traitors and beasts," she says, scornfully, turning her shoulder on Windvoice.

"Say that to Onyx's face."

A ripple contorts the Mistress's face. _Good_. Windvoice wants the irrationality of the Mistress's prejudice to _eat_ at her.

"There is a far cry between a Prime and his subjects," she replies, coldly, sweeping aside the inherent contradiction. "It is as I told Optimus. You are no longer the Windblade we once knew. There is a corruption inside you. You've forsaken your faith, your honor, and your duty for selfish pride and advancement."

Then something shifts in the Mistress's demeanor, and she sighs. For a moment, her face looks old, and weary. "Perhaps it is my own fault. I did not guide you as firmly as I should have. Sending you and your cohort to reconnect with Cybertron led to this. You were too untested and headstrong, still. This Council of Worlds was a new thing, and I did not realize how far you strayed from Caminus's ideals in your service on Cybertron."

That low note of regret is back. Windvoice doesn't acknowledge it. If she lets herself feel it, this quiet disappointment will hurt like a knife in the spark.

Once upon a time, the Mistress's approval lit her up like a beacon. Its retraction means nothing now. It hasn't in over a year.

At Windvoice's lack of reaction, the Mistress clicks her vocalizer, and turns away. She shuts the cell door with a light touch, the disappointment in her face tainted by a seed of triumph. "I see no point in drawing this out needlessly. Meditate on your failings tonight; tomorrow, we will carry out your sentence," she finishes, her voice pitched to carry down the hall. Not just for Windvoice's benefit. The mask of the Mistress of Flame smooths over her face, and then she's gone, her heels a flash between the fluttering folds of her cloak as she and Lex Magna fall in step together. A single Praetoria returns once they've passed out of sight, his visor expressionless as he takes up a position beside the door.

The cuffs scrape against the floor as Windvoice lets herself slump, the weight on her wrists straining her shoulders. Wings low, she glances out the thin slit of a window carved through the metal, through which she can just barely make out the lower ridge of the sanctuary's roof, and the pagoda of the Way of Flame's temple beyond.

 _Welcome home_.

\---

_"Heh. Nobody's perfect."_

\- Starscream of Kaon, as quoted in <<The Last Days of the Senate: A History>>

\---

It's been centuries since he last played sycophant to someone.

(Simply _ages_ since he actually meant it.)

He's out of practice. And he went and killed Rattrap, so he can't even delegate this to someone expendable. He smiles, and simpers, and oh so helpfully arranges for a constant stream of supplicants and inquiring minds to assail Onyx and Optimus without break.

Optimus has yet to catch on - with Jazz so helpfully ushering in the Trypticon delegates when Starscream runs out of options around noon, Starscream can guess why - and while Onyx might smile, his optics lit with quiet mockery whenever Starscream pretends to preen over his attention, he doesn't make his move. He's secure enough in his position that he expects Starscream to wear himself out, first.

Please.

He can't hang off Onyx's elbow all day long, alas. He never thought it possible, but his face starts to creak and cramp from smirking so slavishly without break. Well, it _is_ a new face. His torso protests, too, but Flatline shoved him back together in record time - it'll hold. Who hasn't been impaled before?

Jazz lopes in mere moments after Starscream gets the ping from Transmutate in the space bridge room that his guests have arrived, which means that Starscream _really_ needs to upgrade his encryption cipher for his underlings. But needs must. He makes his excuses as Jazz inserts himself silently at Optimus's side, and heads down, and down, and down.

Chromia tries to stab him the moment he rounds the corner. What else is new? He dodges with only a cursory flare of alarm. "I'll kill you!" she yells - a year with Arcee has _not_ improved her repartee. Which is a shame, since Windvoice will probably insist on keeping her around when she gets back.

If she gets back.

It's a pain in the neck, having a leader he actually wants to keep alive. It really is. When Chromia tries to mix things up and bash him upside the chin with her shield, Starscream sighs and tilts his head back, sidestepping her and resisting the urge to roll his eyes into eternity. The hardest part about fighting colonists is _not_ killing them with an easy shot when they leave their heads wide open like this. Apart from the Carcerians, even the ones trained to fight are just…sad.

Whatever. He trips her and kicks the energy ax out of her hand when she hits the ground and tries to roll. She curses when the giant chunk torn out of her leg betrays her with a spasm. "Worse people than you have tried. Look where it got them," he says, in a bored monotone, as she scrambles to right herself.

"You're a _monster_ ," she spits.

He's plenty of things. But first and foremost, he's busy. Brushing past her with a flicker of impatience, Starscream deactivates the ax by stepping on it with his heel, then kicks it carelessly backward so it skitters back along the floor toward Chromia. "Will one of you come sit on this one before she does something unforgivably stupid?" he calls. Ironhide is already waiting around the curve of the tunnel; he greets Starscream with the standard grimace and raised weapon. The roots are getting crowded: Killmaster alone was bad enough, since the hulking menace refuses to shrink himself down to a normal size, but with Wheeljack, Brainstorm, Nautica (and now Nightbeat - eugh), Cyclonus, Whirl, and that ghostly minibot hanging around, he's positively surrounded. "Don't think you're off the suspect list just because you got blown up, too," he adds, narrowing his eyes at Chromia as he sweeps past Ironhide's blaster and sits on top of a pile of scientific equipment that looks suitably stable, folding one leg over the other.

Chromia's hand clenches into a fist as she pushes up onto one knee. The inner workings of her leg twitch and twist in the half-light; she should probably still be up in medical care. "I would never -" she insists raggedly.

"You've done it once already. What can I say? I'm a cynic," he says, coolly. She looks stricken as she tries to haul herself upright on the wall, and he dismisses her as he turns his attention back to Ironhide. Wheeljack has one hand on Ironhide's arm - asking him to ease off in an undertone - and one hand raised to caution the others to stay back. Giving Starscream far more of the benefit of the doubt than he deserves. Whirl, unfortunately, takes the raised hand as a game, his optic popping up at intervals as he jumps and twists to point his gun around Wheeljack's guard.

Starscream thinks he has all of Rodimus's people contained - Ultra Magnus coordinating with the security force; Ratchet, Chromedome, Velocity, and Rung occupied at the hospital, with Chromedome under surreptitious watch; Swerve manning the fort alone at Maccadam's, sighing dejectedly whenever someone asks him where Blurr is, according to a very bored Vortex. Repository has some business with Rewind, which is infinitely preferable to Repository trying to have business with Whirl. The only exceptions are Rodimus himself, and Deadlock, both of them in the wind.

Ugh. There's a reason Starscream didn't want to oversee these people. Rodimus's crew wriggle their way into everything - meddlers of the highest, most unpredictable order. The last thing he needs is one of them poking around and upsetting all his hastily improvised, jury-rigged plans. "Anyway, Ironhide. We're initiating ultraviolet security protocols," he says, once his sensors finish sweeping the room and confirm that of every Autobot in the room, only Ironhide, Whirl, Wheeljack, and Chromia are really paying attention to him. The others are engrossed in the cage of crystal and metal struts that they've fashioned beside Killmaster's wand, though Nightbeat shoots an appraising look in Starscream's direction. It's only a Tailgate-sized cage - for now.

Ironhide shrugs his gun away, but his irritated disbelief at Starscream's nerve remains. He blocks Whirl's next line of sight when Whirl bounds up on his long pedes to point the gun over Wheeljack's head. "One, what does that even mean? Two, you really expect this to happen? Right now? You've got some real explaining to do, Starscream, and if you hadn't noticed? No one here is feeling particularly friendly right now."

"No one?" Starscream crosses one leg over the other, the picture of nonchalance. He counts Wheeljack as sympathetic, and the rest of the Autobot scientists as a solid neutral, leaning towards distracted. Cyclonus is busy guarding the cage in progress - or staring longingly into Tailgate's transparent visor. Or both. Starscream raises his voice. "Not even you, Killmaster?"

Killmaster looks up, unamused, and plugs two cords together with the perfunctory air of someone dying of boredom. "I find you tedious."

" _I_ would let you gun down the moons," Starscream points out. Just to see the pained look on Ironhide's face.

Killmaster shakes his head in disdain. "You severely overestimate how interesting I find moons. Those designs are old. I never look back; it distracts from the now."

Excuses, excuses. Starscream sighs gustily. " _Fine_." Then he folds his arms, all business. "Airachnid is back. Trust no one, not even yourself. If you've been alone, if you've left everyone else's sight for even a second, you need to be scanned for mnemosurgery marks under ultraviolet. I already have people stationed around Metroplex's processor but without _cooperation_ -" he glares pointedly, "- I no longer have the support we'd need to fully secure Metroplex."

Ironhide still looks skeptical - smart of him. "Who exactly did you send to the processor chamber?"

Considering he's down to two Badgeless, Transmutate, and Vortex, he'd rather been scraping the bottom of the barrel. "People I still have pull with. Blurr, whoever he got together on short notice," he says, with an airy wave. Technically, the Maccadam's bunch are people Windvoice has pull with, for some bizarre reason, but they're at least semi-competent. Starscream had been desperate enough that he thinks they took pity on him. The exact circumstances of Windvoice's disappearance hadn't spread that far yet, and he didn't intend to enlighten them.

Then, just to be petty, he jerks his thumb at Chromia. "Start with her, and work your way back."

The odds of Chromia being responsible for the bombing are non-zero. She might not even know if she was, herself. It's the bad old days, all over again.

Why did he think inviting a mnemosurgeon to Cybertron was a smart idea, again?

Chromia snaps. " _You_ let them take her! You helped him!" she yells, with a cutting slice of her hand. She's distraught, livid, and will probably bust a fuel line, at this rate. "You have no idea what they'll do to her there!"

All true, except the last. "I can make an educated guess," Starscream says. He opens a subspace compartment - with a tiny grunt at the way it sets off a few pain sensors - and pointedly refuses to acknowledge her glare. "If the fanatics want their scapegoat, they'll have to try harder than that."

"You got a plan for getting her back?" Wheeljack says, quietly.

Nautica's head pops up - so much for the show of being busy.

By Autobot standards, it doesn't count as a plan unless it involves at least five mechs busting down the door and storming the fortress with their bare hands. And they wonder why Prowl lost his mind. Starscream sniffs and tugs the compartment of his wrist armor open. Reinstalling the ultraviolet torch is something he could do in his sleep, but when he sees what Starscream's doing Wheeljack breaks away from Ironhide and takes over with an exasperated flicker of affection. "Obviously. I have complete and utter faith in her," Starscream replies, tossing his helm haughtily.

A brief pause, as they all absorb his brilliant plant. Wheeljack freezes with a screwdriver poised over Starscream's wrist, thinking very hard.

"…Does he have a fever?" Ironhide asks Wheeljack.

Wheeljack sighs; when he reaches up to press the back of his hand to Starscream's forehelm, Starscream petulantly pulls away. "I'm calling Ratchet," he says, tucking the screwdriver in the crook of his audial with a furrow of worry between his brows.

Starscream swipes at the screwdriver with a huff. "Listen to me, you -" Wheeljack takes advantage of the move to touch his forehead, the sensors of his fingers pressed to Starscream's temple. Behind Ironhide, Whirl wilts in disappointment at the fact that Starscream's not a fun target anymore. Starscream rolls his optics. "Give me some credit for five seconds and assume that Airachnid is back! _Where_ did she come from?"

"Wherever _you've_ been hiding her?" Chromia mutters, darkly. She's pretending to lean against the far wall, arms crossed hard over her chest, but it's a blatant cover for the way she needs the wall to stand at all.

Starscream pinches the bridge of his nose. Resigned, he lets Wheeljack tilt his head down to test his optics. "It's like pulling teeth, dealing with you people, I swear."

Finally, for the first time, Nightbeat joins in. "You think Airachnid went to Onyx."

Of course he's the only one here capable of connecting the most basic dots. He's still scrutinizing Starscream, a weird look of fascination in his visor. Starscream immediately distrusts it, and contrarily screws up his face in disgust. Nightbeat claps a hand over his mouth and curls over, head hidden behind Nautica's back, shoulders shaking.

That _better_ be fear.

Starscream starts fiddling with his wrist again, since Wheeljack's so distracted with coddling him. "Someone gave Onyx Prime the intel he needed to skewer Windvoice. He was gunning for it from the moment he landed. Four people had the opportunity, unless he paid a visit to Caminus and no one thought to mention it to us." He tips his chin toward Chromia. "Bomb's away, here -"

"You-!"

Starscream talks over Chromia's angry protest. "Liege Maximo, who I don't think hung around to watch the grand finale. Arcee - which I doubt. Or, if a certain exiled Eukarian who was working with Liege Maximo decided to go haring off to her _original_ Prime this past year…"

"Or, _you_ had your lackeys set off another bomb, and threw Windvoice to the Mistress of Flame so you could finally get her out of your way!" Chromia fires back. "Sounds a lot simpler to me."

Ah. There goes the rest of his patience. Starscream takes a step forward, feeling an ugly flare of temper simmer inside. "Here. Let me make it simpler for you."

Wheeljack presses a hand against his chest, and gently pushes him back down onto the terminal. He's careful not to push on the giant patch in the side of Starscream's chest, but the gentleness hurts in a different way, as usual. "Starscream. Don't."

He says it so quietly that it only reaches Starscream's audials. To the rest of the room, it just looks like Wheeljack's leaning on him: close, intimate. Something in Starscream wants to crawl out of his chest at the presence of an audience and claw their eyes out. They don't need to see this, or get ideas. Nightbeat's probably already deduced too much.

Thankfully, Chromia can be relied upon to ignore the gaping display of vulnerability in the room and trample over it with all the grace of one of Soundwave's giant dogs. Wheeljack's the only thing standing between her and Starscream's deep well of irritation, but she's too caught up in her own self-righteous indignation to notice. "The only person I see running around and feeding Onyx Prime information is you. You sold her out the first chance you got."

Starscream curls his hand over Wheeljack's waist and restricts himself to a baleful glare with the patience of an ancient, rusted old saint. "Yes, I did! They were going to take her anyway, while you were laid up unconscious in the hospital! And thanks my efforts, I know exactly who Onyx has been talking to every hour of the past day. _I_ advised him on all of Optimus's dealings with Galvatron and the action on Earth, and how to approach Optimus based on that. _I_ still have contacts with the media, who as we speak are reporting on the fact that Windvoice has been _whisked_ away by a pack of unsanctioned Camien guards who didn't follow inter-world travel protocol in the wake of a suspicious explosion. _I've_ been there to intercept any and all reports that some pandering idiot might try to redirect to Optimus because they think he gets to be in charge now by default. What have you done today?" His fingers are digging into the seam of Wheeljack's hip, trying to steal patience from him. Wheeljack touches the side of Starscream's face, tilting it so that his head rests on Wheeljack. Turning his optics subtly away from the far end of the hall, as if Starscream's sensors didn't _already_ detect the flicker of transparent motion in his peripherals. "He knows I'm trying to influence him. I know that he knows. What he _doesn't_ know is that no one with half a processor is going to lay down and let this happen. He's not dealing with a bunch of hapless peasants who don't know one end of a cannon from the other. Not anymore."

There. Radiating vindication, Starscream settles back against Wheeljack, ignoring the shadow of Megatron down the hall. He doesn't matter. Starscream won't _let_ him matter.

Ironhide buries his face in his hands. "You're going to start a riot, aren't you."

Not _here_ , obviously. If Onyx really did make a bid for Neo-Cybertron, Starscream would skip straight to a war. "Don't be ridiculous," he says.

"I think he's actually trying to be helpful. Is he always like this when he's helping?" Nightbeat asks, wheezing with laughter. He can't even peel himself off Nautica's shoulder, he's laughing so hard. Oh, he's going on the _special_ list, once Starscream has time to plot hypothetical assassinations in his spare time again.

Ugh. Starscream turns his wrist over and plugs the ultraviolet module in. Wheeljack sticks his fingers in, adjusting some wires with a long-suffering expression, and then tries to run a reflex test on Starscream's hand circuits. Starscream's most concerned with checking that the torch transforms out properly when he twists his wrist, but allows it. "Keep working on this. I know the urge to meddle is strong, but we don't actually need the planet blowing up underneath us if you people get distracted," he orders, with a special glare for Brainstorm that goes completely unheeded. He glances at Chromia. "You, keep your head down. She never finalized that pardon. Ironhide, with me."

He pushes off the terminal - with one last narrow-eyed, warning glare for Nightbeat, who almost chokes on laughter again, the slagger - and heads back the way he came. He doubts he's talked these slaggers out of fomenting well-intentioned rebellion right under his nose, but he may have bought some time.

Now, if only Windvoice would hurry up.

"But where are you going?" Ironhide asks, not budging an inch. The rebellion has fomented early, it would seem.

Starscream gestures toward the ceiling, vaguely. "Calling in the big guns. We need. Hggk." Something's stuck in his vocalizer. "I need hh-"

"You still can't spit it out?" a horribly familiar voice drifts in from around the curve. Bumblebee walks around instead of coming through the wall, and takes in the sight before him with a wry smile. He's bluer than before, and rounder, if possible - apparently going on a sabbatical means completely letting go of all your war upgrades. "I'm here, anyway. Hey, Wheeljack. Ironhide."

Wheeljack blinks, then shoots Starscream a look. "Hey there. When did you get back in town?"

"Just now. Apparently Starscream is too busy monologuing to remember his guests," Bumblebee raps Starscream lightly on the arm with the side of his cane, which he still doesn't actually need or use. "Starscream, just tell them how they're saving Windvoice and stop making things more complicated for yourself. Communication, remember."

Right. Now he remembers why he didn't want Bumblebee hanging around the planet. Starscream lets his shoulders sag. "Uhhgggghhhh." When he reopens his optics to a bunch of blue optics, all staring at him like he's the unreasonable one, he shoots Bumblebee the evil eye. "She has the Lathe. Either she can break out on her own, get that conveniently mute Titan of hers to testify on her behalf - or every Decepticon on Caminus really will riot when they sentence her."

This is simply a fact, which he is stating for the record. Starscream wishes he could take credit for arranging it, but the fact is that not many Decepticons listen to his grand speeches unless they directly get something out of it.

Bumblebee groans. "Okay. I've got my work cut out for me. We'll work on something more proactive."

"Since when do the 'cons over there like Windvoice enough to riot on her behalf?" Ironhide asks, frowning.

Starscream sniffs. "Tch. They're going to try to take her hands and face. _We_ got the empuratees. You do the math." The raids and rallies to reunite victims with their faces were the height of Decepticon recruitment, back in the day. He's had more than enough time these past few months to vet the known Decepticons who hightailed it for Caminus and mark those who would be less than amused to learn about the kind of ritual punishment their new host planet utilizes.

Whirl's mutilated claw shoots up into the air.

"You don't count and you know it!" Starscream snaps.

Whirl appears to consider this - squints - then lowers his claw. "I would dispute that, but he's absolutely right," he says to the room at large, with a shrug.

" _We_ had to deal with your Institute, and your New Institute, and all the mnemosurgeons you lot conveniently inherited from the Senate." Before anyone can call him on the obvious hypocrisy, Starscream adds, "Right, Soundwave?"

Soundwave doesn't emit a detectible EM field - Starscream never asked whether that's a design flaw or a feature. But you don't work with someone for millions of years without learning how their visor looks when they're annoyed at getting caught in stealth mode. Earth's made him soft - perhaps not quite as soft and squishy as Thundercracker's gone, but soft enough. Soundwave does not bother walking into full view of the roots chamber; he simply decloaks some of the stealth measures hiding him from standard sensors, his expression dour. "Starscream." Then he inclines his head. "Optimus did not say there was another Prime here."

Starscream fans his fingers out to inspect them. "He only sent for Trion? Funny how these things work out, isn't it?" he says, innocently.

If Optimus's message intended for Soundwave may have found itself sadly waylaid on its way through the space bridge - well.

How unfortunate.

Starscream closes his hand into a fist and smiles charmingly at Soundwave.

Soundwave, who has never been fooled by that smile even once in their functioning, stares at him flatly. "Shockwave?"

Starscream shudders. "Absolutely not. We have work to do," he says, beckoning Bumblebee and Ironhide. Ironhide is reluctant, his serious concern tinged with suspicion even now. Bumblebee shakes his head, with that look in his eye that says he knows Starscream far too well. Better than anyone has any right to.

It's like the Combaticons. One of these days, Starscream's going to regret not taking care of that.

Windvoice needs to hurry up, before he deals with it all _his_ way.

-

SS: So?  
SS: Will you hold up your end of the bargain?  
VM: If you hold up yours.  
SS: Cross my spark.

-  
SS: When you succeed in bringing that tiny gremlin back.  
SS: Keep going.  
WJ: …You sure about that?  
SS: Oh yes.  
SS: If you think I won't sic Megatron on these two, you underestimate the depths of my pettiness -  
WJ: Are you trying to punish yourself?  
SS: No.

\---

  1. _i am rubble, i am debris littered in the corners of_  
_morning dry eyes. i am the weathered rocks of the acropolis -_  
_i sleep and dream of shoe soles beating lines into my skin and_  
_if all you give me is time all i will do is erode._



\- a.c. of Caminus, <<[it would never work out between us](http://chuckhansen.tumblr.com/post/104361245077)>>

\---

She has a day and a night to meditate in her cell. The guard changes out every few hours; a few watch her more closely than others, and Windvoice finds herself hesitant to make a move. She has enough room to maneuver with the cuffs on to reach her subspace, and her helm; but she hasn't used that to put the only plan she has into motion.

The Ignis Court already tried her in absentia, under the Mistress of Flame's auspices. Windvoice will have one opportunity to speak tomorrow, if she's lucky, before whoever comes to witness the public announcement of her sentence. She doesn't know how Camiens at large feel about her and her treason, but she can try to appeal to them. Or - a more ominous thought - she could try to appeal to the Decepticon expatriates who came to Caminus over the years. That's far riskier, but Starscream believed the issue of empurata being a war crime in the galaxy at large would be compounded by the fact that Decepticons old enough to remember what truly started the war hate empurata with a visceral passion.

Or she can appeal to someone else.

And no matter what the Mistress of Flame thinks, she is still herself.

She bides her time and attempts to discern which guard might pay the least amount of attention to Windvoice fiddling around with her subspace. Late in the night, one Praetoria shuffles her feet and appears engrossed in fluttering her fingers along her energy spear in what is quite clearly a silent rendition of the Hyperuranian Suite's fourth movement for the cithara, but by the time Windvoice works herself up to make a move, the next guard comes to rotate into place early.

This new Praetoria is large, white and bright blue, with wide door wings, navy accents, and a yellow crest; she bounces into place with enthusiastic energy, alert in a way that bodes ill for Windvoice's chances this hour. Windvoice lowers her head, trying not to be obvious about her scrutiny. Soon or later she'll just have to risk it -

"Hi!" the Praetoria squeaks.

Windvoice blinks.

"Hello," she says, after an awkward pause. That…came out of nowhere.

The Praetoria clears her vocalizer, her pale face flushed blue in mortification. When she speaks again, her voice is much less high-pitched. "I'm Strongarm. It's nice to meet you!" Then she winces. "Uh. Not under these circumstances, I guess. No offence."

Mystified, Windvoice shrugs. "None taken."

The Praetoria's head whips around to scan the hallway, then whips back. The weird, electric excitement dims a little as she smiles crookedly at Windvoice. "You probably don't remember me, huh."

Windvoice frowns and scans the Praetoria again. Nothing about the mech pings her as particularly familiar; white and blue are traditional Praetorian colors for someone fresh out of cadethood, and though Chromia had a few friends in the guard, Windvoice never saw much of them. After sifting through her memory, she shakes her head. "I'm sorry. I'm…a bit distracted. Remind me?"

Another short laugh; Strongarm almost sounds sad. She bounces on her heels, seemingly full of pent up energy as she double checks that the hall is clear. Then she turns and wraps a hand around one of the cell wars, and lowers her voice to a whisper, door wings flicked up like a shield. "I'm technically not supposed to be on guard duty for you. But I kept my mouth shut when everyone else kept insisting what they saw was true, and now most of them got shipped east on perimeter patrol. I saw Caminus bring you the Forge. I _know_ what I saw." Her eyes shine, brilliant and wide with the risk she's taking.

Windvoice hasn't thought about those guards outside the space bridge since - since word first came that they'd been discredited by the Mistress of Flame. She's had so much else to worry about that the fate of those who directly witnessed Windvoice's arrival rarely crossed her mind. For a moment all she can do is kneel there, nonplussed, her spark squeezed tightly at the thought that someone here _believed_ her; that they made the effort to find her again.

Then, while she's slack-jawed in amazement, Strongarm starts to mess with the lock, her face screwed up in determination. Windvoice doesn't realize she's going to stop her until belatedly, when she's already shot her arm out to grip the Praetoria's wrist between the bars. The cuffs knock sharply against the bars, denting her armor under the edge. "Wait! Don't."

Strongarm stares at her, defiantly. "You shouldn't be in here. This is wrong!" she insists, with a stubborn jut in her lower lip. She says it as though it's the easiest thing in the world.

It's more reassuring than Windvoice can possibly say. Windvoice smiles, overflowing with gratitude. "Don't risk ruining your life for my sake. Do you love Caminus?"

Strongarm shakes her head in disbelief. "Yes! And this isn't what's right. This isn't what Caminus wants. I won't leave you here, imprisoned for a crime you didn't commit." She tries to tug her wrist free from Windvoice's grasp.

"Maybe so. But I think I know what to do," Windvoice says, with a confidence she doesn't quite feel. But the right path seems clearer now, fortified by Strongarm's sudden, stubborn faith, and she takes a step back. Strongarm doesn't immediately start on the lock again, her brow furrowed uncertainly as Windvoice kneels again to begin digging through her subspace.

Removing the pin is easy. When she draws the Creation Lathe free, Strongarm's expression goes soft and full of awe. Windvoice smiles again. "Thank you. Stay with me?" she asks, as she lowers her head to reach the merge port again.

Strongarm straightens to attention. "Of course!" she says, snapping a crisp salute, and then turns to act the part of a guard while Windvoice presses the Creation Lathe home.

-

The Lathe knows that the bars could be bent aside with sufficient force or the proper wedge. It knows the exact metal composition of the walls, floor, and ceiling, and it knows how very basic and uncomplicated the lock on the door is. The Praetoria haven't updated their technology or methodology in several millennia; they haven't needed to. There is a pride, in tradition as well as skill.

Windvoice doesn't want to escape. She wants the truth known. She wants this _done_.

[Caminus? Can you hear me?] she asks, pressing her hands against the cold floor.

Reaching out with the Lathe is a matter of visualization. Windvoice still isn't sure of the extent of its abilities - but she knows the fine, wafer-thin sensors and wires that run through every inch of Caminus's neurocircuitry, especially here in the heart of Caminus, and the Lathe can trace them all the way back to the source. She can half-see it - the branching lines and neat angles limned in fuchsia as the Lathe sketches out its path on the holovisor projected over her optics - but part of her turns inward.

Caminus's processor isn't close enough. His spark is.

[. . .]

She once wondered if the Lathe knew about Cybertron's slow death before Arcee brought it to her.

She doesn't need to wonder if it knows Caminus. The Lathe knows Caminus like it knows nothing else. Windvoice darkens her optics and bends to rest her head on the floor, her fingers spread wide as a familiar, deep dream rolls over her.

Caminus loves all of them. Even comatose, even dreaming, he loves them. A mournful, abiding love, distant and stricken through with grief, and all of the sparks he carried from Cybertron to here sing with it. When their star waned and the world slowly cooled, he had already slipped so far away that none of them could call him back. His spark is his space bridge is his heart, and at some point, he lost the will to wake up.

Better a tender dream than reality.

Being alone is such a painful way to live.

[I'm tired, too,] Windvoice whispers. She can feel her eyes sting, a long way away, back in the cell. The Lathe winds through the base of the space bridge, a quiet pulse. The echo of Metroplex's resonance hangs in the air - wrenching, full of worry - but it's not enough. [It's lonely, being so far from home. I wish -]

[. . .]

No words, still. [Don't you miss them, too?]

[. . .]

-

And she knows why it's not enough.

\---

_ [please, let me go back] _

_ [We are never alone.] _

\- Windblade of Caminus and Metroplex of Cybertron

\---

When she raises her head, an hour before dawn, Strongarm is still thankfully there. She perks up when Windvoice wakes from her fugue, her eyes full of hope. Windvoice presses a finger to her mouth for silence, and Strongarm nods - then flinches and whirls at the sound of many mechs coming down the far hall.

No time to put the Creation Lathe away. Windvoice deactivates it, spark pounding with a burst of terror as the Lathe folds down into its smaller, less ornate form. It's not obvious, but it's obviously not the same pin she wore on her way in here; if anyone notices the slight difference, she'll be in trouble. The Mistress of Flame is the one most likely to recognize it, from Windvoice's own testimony.

She can do this without the Lathe. Probably. But she hopes she won't need to test that theory.

The Mistress of Flame is noticeably absent from the squad of guards who march up to retrieve her. A quick glance out the window reveals nothing - dawn's just not as obvious here as on Neo-Cybertron. "I'm not worth a personal escort anymore?" Windvoice asks, unable to resist, before the squad's stone-faced captain places the muting collar around her neck once more.

Strongarm drops into formation with them. The captain shoots her an odd look. "Aren't you off duty now?"

To her credit, Strongarm's troubled expression passes for earnest pleading. "As if I would miss this. I want to stand with the Praetoria and see it done. Please, captain," she says, trembling with nerves. Or anticipation, depending on one's perspective.

The captain studies her for a moment, then grips her shoulder. "You are a credit to your cohort. Come."

The welded wound in her side aches anew as the Praetoria lead Windvoice through the sacred precinct, back the way she came yesterday. But the great central road is crammed to bursting with people, a crowd of frames and overlapping wings that leaves only a thin opening for the escort to traverse the road, barely wide enough for two mechs to walk abreast. With each step they take, another rustle runs through the crowd, and the wash of hundreds of thousands of overlapping EM fields sends a confused barrage of input pouring over her.

The question is, who _isn't_ here to witness this? Not everyone on Caminus can squeeze into the central road or the open-air pavilion where major ceremonies and public sermons of the Way of Flame are held - but it's a close-run thing. Buildings outside the sacred precinct with flatter roofs bear clusters of tightly packed mecha who look on from above. As the slow procession continues, Windvoice finds her vision blurring as she focuses on the beautiful carvings on the long walls that rise on either side of the road, instead. She can't quite register the panic, but her spark chamber feels tight, her ventilation system as wide as it can go to draw in cool air that never seems to reach her internals.

The pavilion is worse. It's one of the oldest structures in Cordis, with deep red walls that curve up toward the sky in a shallow bowl and golden curves that frame the raised platform like crescent moons, and through the eastern gate she has a clear view of the space bridge's square, with the bridge itself a circle of blue against the perpetual twilight at the top of the steps. Most of the details are indistinct and fuzzy, right up until the Praetoria lead Windvoice onto the platform and push her down onto her knees.

 _That_ cuts through the fog. The sharp flare of visceral anger isn't hers; it's an echo of Vigilem's time in her spark. She hasn't been judged like this before. He has. Jolted sharply back to the present, Windvoice forces her shoulders and wings straight until she's kneeling in a proper position for meditation, instead of slumped and bristling. They can't take that from her.

Up here, the roar of the crowd is reduced by the acoustics, designed to carry sounds away from the platform and over the audience. They're not shouting at her: the muttered conversations of thousands of mechs can't help but drown each other out, and it causes them all to speak louder just to be heard over the general noise. It's a sea of blue and gold and purple optics - if there's any red, she can’t make them out - and all of them are here because of what she's done.

Most of the ritual artifacts and instruments have been cleared from the platform. There are more guards than priestesses, in stark contrast to a normal gathering, but the Mistress of Flame presides over them all with the same stately, commanding grace that Windvoice remembers from a thousand ceremonies before. Windvoice recognizes the gold weave of the Mistress's cloak as she steps forward to address the people of Caminus. It features a story woven in the shape of Solus, her hammer raised over her head in a rainbow of bismuth thread. The Matriarch of Incaendium waits before the priestesses, the glint of her red optics barely visible beneath the heavily embroidered hood of her office.

A time-honored arc of the Mistress's hand, and silence spreads through the crowd. Pockets of restless motion and whispers persist, particularly in the open spaces where the crowd spills out of the pavilion and into the streets beyond. At an observance, there would've been total silence; the atmosphere now is far more agitated, on edge. Windvoice can't read whether they're on the brink of anger, or something else.

"People of Caminus. Would that we were gathered with happier tidings," the Mistress of Flame says. Her voice is soft, but stern; it filters through the crowd through a system of external speakers rather than volume. A rap of the Ignis stave against the platform, and then she brandishes it at Windvoice. "We who speak in Solus's name bring before you Windvoice, formerly of Caminus, to submit to justice for her crimes, so that you all may bear witness."

That draws a true surge of sound from everyone. Windvoice can't tell what her face is doing or what note the Mistress has struck with the crowd. The rest of the world feels very distant now, but she fears that if she listens to what the Mistress of Flame has to say, the grief and terror and anger will spill out of her in a hot flood. Everything she's pent up inside without Chromia by her side, every piece of her spark that resonates too much like Vigilem, angry, and poisoned by that anger for so long -

"An apostate, whose invectives against the holy Primes I have heard myself, from her own lips. A blasphemer who defied her exile from Caminus to steal Solus Prime's own Forge and cast it aside to be desecrated and destroyed, and who has confessed to similarly defiling the Creation Lathe itself, long lost." The Mistress of Flame swings to a halt before Windvoice, her face a brittle mask of pity and disdain. "A traitor, who conspires with the Traitor Titan Vigilem to subvert true justice."

\- and whether Vigilem was truly a traitor in every sense of that word or not, he's still a part of her, as much as Metroplex and Navitas and Chromia and Starscream and Nautica and Velocity and Wheeljack and Optimus and every other mech she's ever met, who touched her life and altered her in some way -

Then the Mistress of Flame is gone again, her torch raised so that she can pace to the edge of the platform and raise her arms over the gathered Camiens hanging on her every word. Her voice rings in Windvoice's audials. "For such high crimes of blasphemy and treason, there are only two possible punishments. Empurata, or execution."

\- the same way Starscream grew into himself, not quite the same person he could have been if he hadn't been trapped in the wrong frame, but still the product of other's choices and his own, and for better or worse, irrevocably himself -

On the far side of the platform from Windvoice, a member of the Ignis Court stands apart from the priestesses. They're painted black with lines of gold, and in their hands is a blade seldom used.

But - and Windvoice thinks this is _far_ more interesting, her focus narrowing over the crowd to stare at the space bridge - there is another figure who perches on the edge of the space bridge's unguarded steps, one leg folded over the other and her chin on her hand, a length of cold slag resting lightly on her shoulder. Her leg swings from side to side to some unheard beat, and her smile is very far away but vividly alive with laughter.

On some level, Windvoice supposes, this _is_ going to be humorous. Ironic, on a level that only someone like _that_ could appreciate.

Then time skids back onto its rails, her internal rumination cuts off, and the Mistress of Flame addresses Windvoice once more, her voice cold and immediate in her ears. "What do you plead for yourself, Windvoice?"

It's tradition, of course. There's always a choice. Windvoice already knows what answer to give. If something goes wrong - if what she prays will happen doesn't - she needs to be alive. No matter what she might lose. She vents twice, aware of her chest rising and falling as the gasps give way to a calm rhythm.

She folds her hands together, as best she can with the restraints. "Empurata," she says, staring past the Mistress of Flame. "I request permission to pray before my sentence is carried out."

The Mistress of Flame's eyes narrow, but that is not a request she can honorably refuse. Even blasphemers receive a choice, and a moment of reflection. Some use it to try to plead their case to the crowd. "As you wish. Your penance begins here," she says, diffidently. When she turns away, she beckons the black and gold figure at the other end of the platform to come forward.

"Empurata?!" someone shouts abruptly. Their sudden, vocal rage sends a frisson of surprise and unease through the crowd, but Windvoice can't pinpoint the source.

She doesn't want Decepticons starting a young riot amid so many vulnerable, under-armored Camiens. People will die, accidentally or otherwise. She's not worth that, not matter what or who Starscream counts as acceptable collateral damage. Before the angry element in the crowd can gain steam, Windvoice bows forward and presses her hands and forehead against the ground. No time or room to activate the Lathe; all she can do is trust that he'll hear her.

[Caminus. I know you can hear me,] she says. It's not that much different from speaking this way to Vigilem in his own mind; she thinks she's known the trick of it ever since Vigilem. Not quite comms, not quite speech, not quite thought.

[. . .]

Even inactive, the Lathe hums in the listening silence. Windvoice knows what she'd see if she looked down: Caminus, running on fumes of oil, energon, coolant, everything - the long-cooled hot spot layer where their sparks used to flare - the straggling roots that never found purchase in mineral-poor crust. He's a breath away from hollow, [empty], and trading with Cybertron for fuel and resources was only ever a stopgap.

And she knows why he never tried to go back.

She needs to stop staring at her hands, her trembling fingers. Which would be worse: the face or the hands?

A question for another time. She tells Caminus the truth.

[They both miss you. They both want you to come home.]

From deep in the well, a voice finally answers.

[. . . Both?]

Windvoice shows him. Vigilem, in his lonely orbit, and Metroplex, his grief so old that it's as much a part of him as his own hands.

[You think I do not miss him? You think I do not regret -]

[Caminus - come homecome homecome home]

The first tremor feels so faint, it might be nothing more than her own fingers shaking as a dark mech comes to a stop beside her, patiently waiting for her to finish. A mech might have to wait a lifetime to carry out a sentence like this; they have all the time in the world.

The second quake rumbles right beneath the surface. Chimes rise up in staggered waves in the distance, as the reverberation sets off the prayer bells and other instruments that hang throughout the sacred precinct and other temples further from the epicenter. A few of the people on the platform stagger; when Windvoice raises her head, the pavilion is full of conflicting waves of motion, with mechs losing their footing and upsetting the packed rows. This time, she can pick out the ex-Decepticons with perfect clarity - they trend toward darker colors, heavier armor, and the earthquake doesn't distract them for a second.

"Tectonic activity?" one of the higher priestesses says, alarmed. She's a cityspeaker with the requisite face paint; Windvoice vaguely remembers her from visits to Caminus's processor when she was an apprentice. "It's been millennia -"

Without bending, Windvoice presses her palm against the ground once more. [Caminus. It's time to come home.]

And Caminus answers, the words a clear, liquid sound that fills the air over the city like a bell.

[Y e s.]

The whole pavilion judders, a low grind clicking underfoot as the transformation sequence begins, and the crowd erupts into utter pandemonium. Someone points, then another, and as awareness spreads through the multitude, everyone turns to see Caminus's right hand rising up, and up, and up, against the clear morning sky. Metal shrieks and groans like a boom of thunder as Caminus painfully turns a long-atrophied wrist, the houses and roads and plazas of his unfolded arm clearly visible as they hang several kilometers above the earth. A dozen tiny figures fall from upended rooftops as the angle steepens, fluttering for a moment in the air before the mechs transform and catch themselves on the wing.

Slowly, painstakingly, the plates of his arm close, the buildings fitting together like an immense puzzle, as Caminus winds himself back together.

Over the roar of the crowd, the Mistress of Flame has to shout to be heard. "What have you _done_?!" she demands, backing away from Windvoice with horrified eyes as though she's Unicron incarnate. The black and gold emputavi also stumbles away from Windvoice as the floor shudders under them, knocking the squad of Praetoria to the ground. Strongarm's elbowing her way through the scrum; she kicks someone unceremoniously in the throat when they try to haul her back.

The beatific smile Windvoice fixes on the Mistress of Flame is not nice in any way, shape, or form. She wants to have done this for the right reasons, for Caminus's greater good - but there is a shard of vindication in her heart that cannot be denied. "Our star is dead. Caminus is dying here," she tells the Mistress, her voice cutting through the continuous rumble of transformation all around them. "We're going home."

[Home,] Caminus agrees, and -

[- unwound his body -]

[Wind-voice.]

[ - such love -]

\- he is so full of hope.

Someone black and purple lunges over the edge of the platform. There's a recently patched hole in the center of their chest where the badge used to be, only a single furious, burning optic in the center of their helm, and they tackle the emputavi with a shriek that sounds more terrified than enraged. "Wait!" Windvoice yells, sharply, but she thinks the Decepticon is too engrossed in their own panic to hear her.

But the _next_ person to shout cuts right through the muddle, her voice a merry laugh. "Catch!"

Windvoice whips around, just in time to watch Vivere fling that length of metal at her like a spear. It screams through the air with an audible whine, shooting through the gate and over the crowd with laser-like precision, and Windvoice gets half a second of blind incomprehension before she instinctively raises her cuffed hands over her head and ducks.

The cuffs shatter on impact as the metal hits dead in the center; her wrists snap apart reflexively, free at last. The impact jolts her back, knees creaking, and the metal hits the platform behind her with a resounding _CRACK_.

When she turns, rubbing her wrist, the uneven, cold slag clumped on the object cracks and falls away in thick shards. Underneath is the familiar shape of a hammer.

Still intact, after all this time.

"Go on, then!" Vivere calls, cackling, as she spins on a heel and thrusts her hand deep into the base of the space bridge. The bridge itself flares more brightly than Windvoice has ever seen a space bridge go, gathering strength as Caminus reroutes everything he has to make the leap. "I have his spark in hand. You know where you need to be."

Somehow, she doubts Starscream could have predicted Vivere. She's not sure anyone can.

With a shrug to stretch her arms, Windvoice stands up and presses the side of the Creation Lathe to activate it. The hum intensifies as it unfurls, and then trebles when she reaches out and breaks off the last of the slag stuck to the Forge's handle. Even now, after a trip through the core, Unicron, and the center of Neo-Cybertron, the brilliant pink star of Solus's spark thrums in the head of the hammer, lighting it from within. The Forge is built for hands much larger and arms much stronger than Windvoice's, but with two hands she manages to prop it on her shoulder, and it feels just a bit lighter than it did a year ago.

This time, when Windvoice turns to the Mistress of Flame, she looks stricken. Her regal politician's mask is gone, and all that remains is someone who has seen everything she thought she knew and wanted and hoped to achieve turn to ash in her mouth. The staff of the Ignis office lays on the ground, fallen from nerveless hands, and rolls gradually toward the edge as Caminus's internals rumble beneath them.

"This is the truth," Windvoice tells her. "Meditate on your own failings. I've got things to do."

-

First and foremost, she needs to pry the wailing Decepticon off the emputavi before they can get a solid shot in. Strongarm helps, wedging herself in between the two with a grunt, and Windvoice hastily sets the Forge down so she can loop her arms under the emputavi's and drag them out and away. They stare up at her, optics wide and bright with horrified guilt, but there's not much time left. With the Lathe analyzing the scene, Windvoice can tell in exquisite detail just how the Muse of Life is manipulating the flow of energy around Caminus's space bridge; the Titan will be primed and ready to jump to Neo-Cybertron in less than an hour.

Which means the rest of his frame needs to catch up, fast.

"Where to?!" Strongarm calls, leaping down from the platform right on Windvoice's heels. The population of Caminus is in utter turmoil, mecha rushing in a panic to try to get closer to the pavilion, to get back home, to race to the temples, to get away, but they clear out of the way _most_ rapidly when they see Windvoice coming.

"Caminus's processor chamber," Windvoice says, as she pushes through the press of the crowd. She could try to transform and carry the Forge like that, but she doesn't want to risk losing her grip on it. "He's lain dormant for so long - if we don't help, I doubt he'll be able to finish the transformation sequence. Anyone stuck on a loose section when we bridge home -"

"We're really leaving?" Strongarm repeats, as though she didn't quite absorb it the first time. She looks dazzled. Then she shakes her head and snaps to attention, her face hardening in determination before she rolls into a transformation that leaves her a compact, heavily armored enforcement vehicle. Her sirens click on with a piercing beep. "Make way! Coming through!"

The distance between Cordis and Coronae used to feel so far. Even racing on foot in Strongarm's wake, venting hard with the effort of running with the Forge, they seem to eat up the road through the precinct and on up to the base of Caminus's helm. The central road opens up more the further they get from the spectacle in the pavilion. Then they're up the wide, tiered steps leading up to the cityspeakers' main temple and through the door, their footsteps and tire screeches echoing in the carved halls as they blow past the few guards and cityspeaker stragglers who haven't made it to the main processor chamber at the heart of the complex.

Two guards - one as blue as Chromia, the other red and black - finally try to stop them when they reach the chamber, energy axes lancing out to block the path. Word probably hasn't reached them; what has will only be garbled by the chaos Windvoice and Strongarm left behind them. The guards look wild-eyed and confused. "Back off! Praetoria! This is an emergency!" Strongarm shouts, transforming back into rootmode with her tires still smoking, and draws her spear. The guards fall back out of the way, only belatedly glancing at each other to confirm what they're doing, and they're in.

Caminus's processor is a living galaxy. Curves of blue, green, and purple glyphs fan out in waves that lap against the ceiling and the walls, while bright yellow, orange, and red warnings cluster tightly around the brain module itself. At least twenty cityspeakers have crammed themselves in the thick of it, their bodies dark pillars that scatter glyphs as they call out possible interpretations in frantic voices. Windvoice knows all of them by name - old teachers, old friends - and the sight of all of them here, together, thrusts her back five years in an instant.

And Quickswitch. Well, sometimes that's just life. He glances up from a holoscreen mid-tab and grimaces sourly when he recognizes Windvoice. "Should've known you were responsible for this mess," he says, with an aggravated roll of his optics. "Always with the dramatics."

But then he shakes his head and goes back to work on Caminus's latest flurry of alerts, without trying to stop her or shout her down, and Windvoice can live with that begrudging acceptance. Another cityspeaker steps back from where she was immersed in a thick cloud of red glyphs without moving, her figure stooped as she leans heavily on a cane.

"You know what they say. Go big, and go home," Windvoice says, clattering down the steps and squeezing her way in between two cityspeakers who were apprentices in her cohort. Then she's in the whirling tide of Caminus's thoughts, and her focus immediately snaps to a bruised cluster of purple and red that drifts through the shimmer of glyphs like a gas giant, trying to attract someone's attention. She leans the Forge against the back of a terminal, out of the way, and points at the cluster as she waves at one of the assistants on the communications relay. "Contact Kapnos! The right major hip joint is jammed. Line pressure is at 110% and climbing - we need to relieve it or we'll lose the hydraulics all down the leg."

Everyone here is in crisis mode. Bewildered, the assistant looks wildly at another cityspeaker for confirmation.

Honora tilts her head to the side, her pale mouth pursed as she studies the cluster herself. Then she looks at Windvoice - and bows her head. "You heard the Speaker. Call Skyscar," she says, gravely, and then steadies herself with her cane as another cloud of alarms buries her.

"But where are we _going_?! We don't have the fuel! We haven't had it in centuries!" Quickswitch snaps, throwing one of his holo projections up to show a running estimate of Caminus's fuel tank reserves. "The left hand is barely held on by a wire! It was never meant to move again!"

And a hundred other sectors on top of that, from head to foot, where the Camiens adjusted and restructured the architecture during early expansion efforts. All of it will present issues as Caminus slowly and steadily draws himself together into root mode, and then further still in ship mode. Overlapping sections and newer buildings will crush each other as the underlying frame returns to its original configuration; the danger zones bloom in fuchsia as the Lathe helps outline areas of concern.

But Caminus will survive this. This is her home city, her people, and Windvoice won't allow anything less. She doesn't think Vivere will, either. Vigilem warned her not to rely on the Muse too much, but in this case, she thinks it's worth the leap of faith.

"We'll make the jump," she says, and it's an utter certainty. Quickswitch stares at her as she walks through the shimmer of Caminus's mind to reach the center; then something seems to straighten his spine, and he jerks his head in a nod, fanning his screens out again and bending his head to his work.

"Anything I can do to help?" Strongarm asks, shifting her weight from side to side. She checks over her shoulder, side-eyeing the two guards who've peered in to watch through the door.

Windvoice nods absently as a ring of glyphs falls into orbit around her, and kneels beside one of the five merge ports. "Keep an eye on the door. I've been told I don't watch my back well enough by multiple concerned parties," she says, wryly, as she removes the Lathe.

Strongarm nods eagerly. "Easy." Then, just as Windvoice is about to uncap the connection cable - "Uh. Actually. Windvoice…"

The note of trepidation in Strongarm's voice is serious. Windvoice looks up to see someone already waiting in the doorway, framed by the two overawed guards who appear to have reached their mental saturation point for celebrity guests. "Matriarch of Incaendium."

"Not for much longer, I should think," the Matriarch says, in a low, quietly amused tone. When she draws her hood back, the golden weights at the foremost edge tinkling in the suddenly hushed room, her face is mostly a white maskplate; without a mouth, only her eyes and cheeks are lined in the markings of Caminus's face. "You've torn things rather well, on that front. Mistress Sunshield may retreat into quiet sabbatical, once there is a quiet place to be had. But you've rather thoroughly and publicly undercut her in the most fantastical fashion, and I do not believe she will remain much longer. Even a politician must know when to bend her proud neck," she adds, thoughtfully, her red optics twinkling with a familiar spark of irony. "Don't let me stop you. When both a Titan and a Muse are on one's side, I at least have the sense to know where Solus's favor lies. I shall help where I can, most blessed Speaker."

Strongarm's bedazzlement and Honora's reverence could be set aside, in the heat of the moment; having the Mistress of Incaendium press her pale hands together and dip a small, respectful bow to Windvoice tips the balance into unease. Windvoice shakes her head in refusal, her tanks twisting for an entirely new reason. "I'm not blessed. I'm just trying to do what's right. Though perhaps it's selfishness as well." She hesitates. "I want them to be whole again."

"Aren't you?" The Matriarch's eyes crinkle in a smile, and she nods to Windvoice more reasonably before gliding over to join Quickswitch at his post. "There shall be poetry of this most holy day yet, I think. Even if I have to write it myself."

-

Windvoice has merged with Caminus once, and only once - the final test of a cityspeaker's apprenticeship. Connecting with Caminus was like falling into a deep, abiding dream.

This is different. Caminus is awake. Caminus is _alive_. There's still a heavy risk that he could lose control and overwhelm her: it's been millions of years since Caminus last woke, and in the interim his ability to throttle the amount of data that pours through the merge and threatens to fry the processor has declined. But he's truly aware of her now, with keen interest and the bleary confusion of someone struggling to wake up after recharge. There's an undercurrent of desperation in his thoughts as he comes up to greet her. He knows who, and how, but not quite where, and in the meantime, all the myriad processes needed to prepare his systems for takeoff require more filtering before he can communicate in a clear, orderly fashion. Mostly, what he wants is to _go,_ even if all that awaits him is one final heartbreak.

Windvoice skims off the surface, refining what she can and passing on the clarified glyphs to Caminus's projections. The only reassurance she can offer, as she balances the limits of her processor with the flood of thoughts, are her impressions of Metroplex and Vigilem, so that Caminus has something more substantial to lock onto as he reaches across the interstices. [Beloved] Metroplex and [beloved] Vigilem, as dear to Caminus all these grieving years later as they were the day that they all came together.

Windvoice wonders, with a ghost of humor, if that doesn't explain a lot about herself.

[Can we bear the strain? It's been so long?][Can we bear the pain again?] Caminus murmurs, a fully coherent thought. Windvoice relays another tide of priorities to the cityspeakers outside, unsure whether she's saying them out loud or projecting them with Caminus's glyphs. Slowly, on what feels like a geological timescale, she can feel Caminus's body coming together as though it is her own: the plains of the arms and legs curving back together, and then folding again into ship mode. Old roots snap off; easier to regrow them from scratch than try to revive what's left of them. The bowl of the great pavilion shudders as the space bridge chamber folds over into its rightful place. Someone - someone is dangling from their space bridge, crowing with laughter like an absolute maniac - [who else is here?] \- and then recognition of [sweet muse of life] blooms.

The impression of Vigilem's [constant vigilance] warms them with amusement: Caminus has no trouble trusting in someone as wildly free as Vivere.

In the end, what holds them back is the wait for every Camien to be gathered within Caminus's city limits. There are a few bright shining lights of Caminus's children scattered outside the city, in art communes and old temples, and cityspeakers fly out to retrieve them as quickly as they can, ushering all who can be reached to the safety of sectors that are fully enclosed and intact as the shipmode comes together. The main bulk of the population was already here, safely held in the internal sections of that used to be the central road. Crushed buildings interrupt several connectors in the chest and elbows, but that's nothing that cannot wait. [No one is left behind. We will not fail. Hold everyone close.]

The space bridge resonance locks on. Vivere is there, dancing along the fine line between spark memory and memory, her unique ability to ignite more sparks than just her own shoring up any shakiness or uncertainty in Caminus's beacon. [Home -] Windvoice thinks, with Caminus, and -

-

_BAM._

Abruptly, Windvoice remembers that she has a body. A tiny, unsecured body, with spindly limbs, who should probably have been strapped down before they bridged home. The shock of arrival knocks her halfway out of the merge, and she's dizzily aware of two people bracing her on either side, her optics a blinding, sparking white from the raw energy coursing through them to fuel to space bridge. She catches a brief glimpse of the Matriarch steadying herself with one of the railings on the far side of the processor, hand over her head to shield against something that snapped loose on the ceiling.

"The rear stabilizers are in pieces!" Quickswitch howls, over the renewed clamor of alarms. "There are no backups! _Why_ are there no backups?"

"Major fuel line breach near Kapnos -" Honora adds, and then it's a tumult of voices, as all of them race to respond to the latest set of warning glyphs and emergency sirens.

"Where are we?!" someone calls.

Windvoice can answer that one, at least. Her awareness of Caminus cuts in and out, but she reaches for the information with a numb mental probe. Sensors indicate a familiar satellite behind them and to the left, and Neo-Cybertron under their head - no, under the stern - no, now it's under their head again - ah.

"Falling," she announces. Wait. That's not helpful. Now people are staring at her in terror. She may be slightly tipsy from shock; less than ideal. "That's Luna-2. We undershot Metroplex, and we're already falling toward Neo-Cybertron. Where is -"

Another ship collides with them at orbital velocity. The _CRUNCH_ that ensues makes everyone wince, to a mech. Windvoice feels a faint, distant pop as one of their sensor relays snaps off.

Please don't be Trypticon, don't be Trypticon -

But the ship that crashed into them from the side is already burning thrusters to maneuver into alignment with the old, long-unused docking grooves. Another burn to alter their perigee, so that they're not tumbling wildly anymore. Caminus scrambles for the controls for the docking mechanisms, and Windvoice shakes off her stupor to assist. Vast magnets and clamps activate, drawing the two together on a predesigned course - Metroplex has no corresponding equivalent to these structures built into the underside of Caminus.

[I have you,] Vigilem says, as the ship modes combine. _He_ has the backup rear stabilizers, of course. They slot into place, while Caminus tries to remember how to fly in tandem. [I have you.]

[I'm back,] Caminus murmurs.

[You're home.]

-

After all that, landing is a bit of a bust. Even with Vigilem steering, his space-worthy systems working for two, he can only achieve what one would call 'falling, with style.' It's not a crash landing, but it's less than ideal. Windvoice runs triage on Caminus's end of things, directing emergency repairs and jury-rigging, but before they hit she breaks the connection with Caminus and swaps the Lathe in, feeling like her head is extremely top heavy and wobbly as Strongarm helps her to a terminal to act like a normal sized mech for a while.

They land with an immense splash, somewhere in the central ocean. Considering the fact that Caminus may or may not be water tight at the moment…well. Windvoice waits for five minutes as the cityspeakers perform systems checks in quiet, shaky voices, fully expecting that something will explode or otherwise fall apart.

But, with the heat of re-entry steaming off the outer hull, she eventually cracks. "Well. That's the ocean alright," she says, dryly.

[Insolence,] Vigilem responds. The sound of his deeper, amused voice causes no less than three cityspeakers to clutch their chests in abject shock. [You may wish to contact your second, so he can properly arrange for us not to be shot at during our dramatic return to dry land.]

Windvoice shakes her head. Part of her is convinced she should have a headache right now, but she's not feeling it yet. "Yes. That's definitely my top priority. Let me guess. He's been plotting silly things in my absence."

Vigilem's voice goes perfectly neutral. [We had the utmost confidence in you, of course.]

 _Honestly._ Still shaking her head, Windvoice rubs the back of her aching neck and gestures to pull up the readouts they'll need to guide Caminus out of ship mode. Preferably before they sink too far, and she starts having flashbacks to Hydrophena.

"I have been informed that I am to act in the Mistress's stead as she recovers from her shock. Carry on," the Matriarch says, suspiciously serene.

"Best. Day. Ever," Strongarm sighs.

\---

 _We never asked for forgiveness and_  
the world burned and  
burned and  
burned.

 _We were wild and_  
we were wide-eyed and  
we were forgotten.

_We will rebuild the kingdom out of teeth._

- [starredsoul of Earth](http://sunderedstar.tumblr.com/post/168899385628/in-the-beginning-we-held-the-universe-in-our)

\---

It's not difficult to infer what's happened. Not when Metroplex trembles, and says [Caminus] like a prayer for all to hear.

There is a force abroad in the world. Someone whose footsteps shake the ground, whose will upends millennia of stagnation in the course of mere years. Someone who could draw Caminus back from the Well, and hold Vigilem in her spark, and earn the loyalty of the oldest of Titans, which Trion so coveted but could never grasp. Metroplex rebuffed him, again and again, and now -

Now - 

Liege Maximo waits in his cell, and wonders if Onyx truly knows who he's dealing with, here.

"So. Who is to blame?" he says, aloud. It's a one-sided conversation, yes, but there's no need to be impolite. One of them needs to fill the silence. "The quintessential question."

The mech in the hall wades through the bodies and energon to reach his cell. If Onyx wanted him back or dead, Liege muses, he probably should have sent more Maximals to finish the job. The carnage outside reminds him of what was left of Septimus after they were finished with him.

Once, he would've said he understood the Twins of the Darklands. Proud Galvatron, who based the very foundation of his identity on his strength, so used to taking the lead while his twin hung in his shadow that he grew complacent in his dominance - only to have his self-image shattered irreparably when said twin outfought him and drove him to his knees. Their bond never recovered. When Arcee fractured their identity further - changing pronouns, choosing a new Prime, when once they shared everything - they could never go back to what they once were. Of two of the deadliest mecha on the planet, one fell into obscurity, and the other grew twisted and warped with bitterness.

He's starting to wonder if he might have misjudged them. Galvatron was an excellent warrior, in the gladiatorial pits and at Megatronus's side.

Arcee is something else entirely. He'd call her Ferīre-blessed, but the Muse of Battle could never have conceived of a soldier quite like Arcee.

"Was it me, for not stopping them? Was it his, for obeying her?" he muses, leaning back against the wall. He's conscious of the dark purple energon of Onyx's troops speckling his right side, and the fact that he no longer knows where Arcee is outside the cell. "Or was it yours, for trusting your old, honorable general would _never_ harm your lover. Not on your watch, no -"

One instant, he's alone; the next, there's a hole in the ceiling, a seething blade thrust against his throat, and a pair of burning optics centimeters from his own, not quite sane. Her smile is a gruesome, chilling thing.

He smiles back. "Oh, Arcee. Are you here to kill me? I deserve it."

Just as quickly as it came, her smile is gone. There's just Arcee, unsmiling, and the thin line along his neck where the metal's begun to bubble and burn.

He wonders if, all these years, she thought it was jealousy. But they all knew where they stood with Solus; whatever her other faults, in that she was crystal clear.

For a long moment, he can see Arcee wrestling with some impulse. Probably one to lop his head off and be done with it. Once he might have considered leaning in to make her choice much easier. But he's learned many things about himself after millions of years in a prison: even at the lowest point of his grief, suicide never held much appeal.

He's had a long time to plan. He'd rather be  _doing_.

Then she's a blur, and a sharp jolt. Liege remains very still, absorbing the impact, and the ramifications.

Such interesting times they live in.

"No," Arcee says, "I'm here for the truth."

Liege rises slowly, touching his wrist as the chains fall away.

"Who isn't, these days?" he says.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost there...

\---

_Who has looked at either of you lately / With such tenderness?_

\- [Derrick Austin of Earth](http://mythaelogy.tumblr.com/post/175399417076/lifeinpoetry-who-has-looked-at-either-of-you)

\---

They've mostly stopped steaming by the time Vigilem half-leads, half-drags Caminus out of deep water and onto the shore. The hip joint at Kapnos is in ruins, and will probably take years of intensive repairs to return to full functionality. The two Titans' steps leave deep depressions in the sand that quickly fill with seawater before they reach solid turf. Windvoice directs them to a clear space several kilometers out from Metroplex and Censere; she sways with every step they take, loosely resting a hand on the terminal as she tracks their progress on the monitor.

She doesn't know what kind of reception to expect from the Council, let alone Onyx Prime. She'd like to think that this was the result of an under the table deal between Onyx and the Mistress of Flame, circumventing the Council, but thanks to Starscream and his unfortunate propensity for unnecessary scheming, she can only speculate.

But she won't risk taking Caminus closer until she can assess the situation. She and Vigilem are in complete accord in this.

[Here,] Caminus says, sleepily, after a few minutes of shaky contemplation of the terrain. Metroplex and Censere are in sight, the unnatural shade of Onyx's craft a visible stain of darkness over the cities and the forest. Caminus sags in the crux between a lake and the ribbon of a wide river - like most of Neo-Cybertron's waterways, still unnamed - that winds back toward the sea. With the stress and damage from their abrupt arrival, and the lingering effects of Caminus's long starvation, it's an even rougher transformation to return to citymode. Vigilem stands guard, visor over his optics. His frame is angled toward Caminus, but his focus is on the sky and on Metroplex. No words; he simply sends her a live feed of his observations, so that she's aware of Trypticon adjusting his orbital vector to take Vigilem's vacated position; of the minute gravitational shifts around Onyx's optic craft; of the party of familiar faces gathering outside of Metroplex, debating whether or not to approach.

She'll save them the trip. Caminus is sunk deep in himself to attend to the painstakingly slow transition; the projections from his processor are a galaxy of red and orange and yellow to match Metroplex's of old, but nothing that the cityspeakers cannot translate on their own. She detaches herself from them, reluctant but keenly aware that she has a duty to more than just Caminus now.

If Onyx thinks he can bully the Council into irrelevance, he's got another thing coming.

Windvoice retrieves the Forge hammer, and with the Matriarch of Incaendium and Strongarm she heads down though Caminus's shifting, churning layers to reach solid ground. She would've flown down if not for Strongarm - it would save her the trip through the wide-eyed awe of the Camiens crammed together in the center, and the uneven ripple of deep, adherent-to-divine bows that follow her out. She can't bear their worshipful admiration, any more than she can bear the aftertaste of guilt in their massed EM fields from having gathered for the spectacle of her sentencing.

And there are those more frightened than reverent. The ones who'll protest Caminus's sudden relocation, once they've had a chance to process it. Everyone's reeling now, but the lull won't last. Windvoice has no intention of yielding to Onyx Prime, and if defying a living Prime still counts as a blasphemy to some Camiens, they'll just have to deal with it. The Mistress of Flame was a strong political player in a way Windvoice didn't truly perceive before leaving Caminus; her influence and power, particularly in relation to the Forgefire Parliament, was simply a fact of life. She'll still have loyal followers among the Way of Flame and the Parliament itself, despite her disgrace and withdrawal, who may make trouble for the Matriarch whether the Mistress of Flame attempts to reclaim her position or not.

The world was so much simpler before Starscream forced her to learn the double-think of politics.

But they'll be the Matriarch's problem. Windvoice can't take the full breadth and burden of Camien politics on her shoulders. Not anymore.

Cycling a deep vent, she walks out into the sun.

-

The Council comes to meet them halfway.

A few others gravitate to Windvoice's party to make the trek: some priestesses of the Matriarch's retinue, a Praetoria squad who greet Strongarm with boisterous cheer, and a few perceptive, ambitious members of the Forgefire Parliament who slip in to speak with the Matriarch to get a better sense of the tectonic shift in the religious and political arena that just took place. Among them is Seaskate, the red blades of his alt mode jutting from the back of his legs, who has been the Parliament's chief orator for the better half of a thousand-year term. He observes more than he speaks, head cocked to the side as the chattier Parliament representatives try to coax the Matriarch's mood out of her. From what Windvoice noticed, Seaskate only took the lead in dealing with Cybertron once in the wake of Menasor's rampage to request aid, and afterward quietly let the Mistress of Flame to take the lead in dealings with their home world. How he deals with the Matriarch's more reserved nature might be interesting to see.

A group of around thirty Decepticons follow at a distance, then peel away, avoiding the approaching Council and trudging toward Censere. It's not every Decepticon who emigrated over the years, but it's a significant chunk. Members of Ironhide's security team split off from the Council's party to hastily head them off. Technically, by returning like this, they're bypassing immigration security protocol - but Windvoice rather made a hash of that in the first place when she landed the entire populace of Caminus here. The Mistress's prohibition on travel between Neo-Cybertron and Caminus just became hilariously moot.

Onyx Prime comes with the Council, gliding along at his own measured pace at the back of the group. Windvoice keeps her expression cool - until Knock Out gets elbowed aside with a grunt and a pinched expression, and Starscream strides ahead with an incredulous stare directed at Caminus and Vigilem, towering over the landscape. Windvoice rolls her optics, wondering what he expected.

Well. She might as well ask. It's important to remind Starscream at regular intervals that _communication is key._ When he stops dead just short of her, gesturing at Vigilem with a singularly vexed expression, Windvoice crosses the remaining distance, takes him by one grasping, twitching hand, and pulls him into a hug. "Thank you."

"You - hrgk!" he manages, sounding strangled. "What _is_ this?!"

She assumes he's referring to the situation as a whole, not the embrace. "You're ridiculous," she informs him, briskly, and then steps back before she can test the limits of what he can bear.

Starscream waves his hand frantically at the two Titans. "You're the one who brought an entirely new Titan home with you!"

"Your idea, not mine." She pats him briskly on the hand and loops their arms together, turning him so that they're headed toward the Council again. Starscream's neck cranes around to keep staring back over his shoulder as if drawn by a magnet, his field full of disbelief. "You'll want to brush up on your poetry. The Matriarch of Incaendium used to be high priestess of the arts," she advises, though she suspects he's not listening to a word out of her mouth.

Starscream splutters. " _My idea?!_ " He's forced to lower his shrill voice to a heated whisper as they near the Council, but the sentiment remains. "I thought you would be able to convince him to talk again! Not _bring your whole planet here_!"

That's…a perfectly reasonable, realistic set of expectations to have. Surprisingly, considering Starscream's flair for the dramatic. But still. "You said to go big or go home!" she hisses back.

"I assumed that it was implied you would leave your _third Titan_ where you found it!" Starscream says, almost distraught. He reaches up and touches his face with a vaguely horrified expression. "Is this what it's like, dealing with you people all the time? Just randomly bringing home Titans and acting like it's normal? No wonder Prowl lost his mind! Where are we supposed to _put_ all of them?!"

Whenever he says 'you people,' he's referring to Autobots. Windvoice shakes her head, but Starscream's agitation, right on the line between deliberately melodramatic and serious, is oddly heartening. He's really not a very good actor; he'd be a lot more obviously bitter right now if he truly betrayed her and sent her off to die, or worse. "Caminus seems to be alright where he is," she says, with a mischievous smile as she taps his hand one more time and lets his arm fall. "And if all else fails, I suppose we could start lodging them on the moons."

" _You're_ ridiculous," Starscream mutters. He fixes a smarmy smile on his face as the Council comes within reach. "And you've blown my sycophantic cover. Onyx doesn't intend to let you _or_ Optimus keep the planet in the divorce."

"I could've guessed." Windvoice shrugs, straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin. She doesn't bother with a polite mask; quiet steel and fierce composure intermingled serves her better, at the moment. "But I have three Titans. What does he have?"

"An army." Starscream's voice is very dry, but he's back on ground he's familiar with. With an ironic lilt, he adds. "But not Eukaris, yet. _Such_ a shame about Chela."

"Chromia?"

A grimace. "Don't let her assassinate me in my sleep, and we'll call it even."

And then there is no more time for questions. "Council," Windvoice says, with a nod for each representative. Tigatron's back, she sees, relieved, and Slash and Slipstream have come as well. "Caminus has come home."

She lets her eyes track over Onyx, but she doesn't verbally acknowledge him or Optimus - or Trion, she notes, grimly - tacked onto the side of the group like an awkward limpet. There are others who stand out from the rest, including Soundwave and Bumblebee.

…She thinks Starscream may have panicked in her absence. She's probably lucky the planet's still in one piece.

"We've noticed," Knock Out says, wry. There's something more calculating in his gaze, though. "You don't frag around, do you?"

Airazor comes forward and catches Windvoice's hand, threading their fingers together with a smile. "You're back. The Council had _very_ strong concerns when no one could locate you, and the Mistress of Flame refused all contact," she says, loudly, shooting a sharp look over her shoulder as though daring anyone to comment. Tigatron stays close to her side. The pressure exerted by Onyx's mere presence lingers in Airazor's stiff smile, but Tigatron looks firm. Whatever he went to Eukaris to learn, they both seem less on edge, and bolder.

The Matriarch sweeps her hood back and folds her hands together over her chest. She doesn't quite have the height of the Mistress of Flame, but centuries in the Mistress's shadow haven't dulled her sense of timing. "As the Matriarch of Incaendium, I now speak for Caminus in the Mistress of Flame's stead. We retract our gross accusations against blessed Speaker Windvoice, with our sincerest apologies." To Windvoice's embarrassment, the Matriarch dips her head, optics crinkled in a smile. "She is most beloved of Caminus."

"So I should have seen before."

Onyx's low, amused remark makes Windvoice bristle. But when her gaze snaps to him, an impatient reply waiting in her vocalizer, what she sees chokes her. Onyx remains at the back of the crowd, but his optics blaze with fierce, almost eager anticipation, dilated and fixed directly on her. He looks almost ravenous. It's such a sharp contrast to the way he dismissed the whole Council earlier and singled out Optimus that it makes her recoil internally.

And he smiles at her with so many teeth. "I did not recognize you. You've grown shorter, Solus."

 _Finally_ , his optics say. _A worthy opponent._

_An actual challenge._

Windvoice's fingers feel very cold. The Forge hammer crackles, dormant, the weight of Solus's life heavy in her free hand. "That is not my name," she says, numbly aware of the buzz that runs through the Matriarch's escort, and the way Starscream stiffens at her side.

Onyx's teeth flash, and he tosses his head back with a harsh, weirdly triumphant laugh. "Of course not," he says, as he pivots on a heel and stalks away. "You're something more."

And somehow, though he's the one to walk away, Windvoice is left feeling as though she did _not_ win that round.

Slash cuts in, abruptly, before the awkwardness can sink too deep. "You return," she says, as curt as ever. The scent sensors of her alt mode flare, absorbing new input.

Considering how well that Council meeting went, Windvoice thinks they're lucky Trypticon didn't take the whole thing as an insult and a threat. "Sorry for the mess. And the interruption," she says, searching for the right note to strike after Onyx's declaration.

Slash merely nods, solemn. "Vigilem has granted us uncontested orbit. We will join your Council," she says, resolutely, in a voice that will brook no argument. Slipstream nods, arms folded over her chest.

Well. It's not like they have a meeting room anymore.

Windvoice glances around the Council. "Comments? Concerns? Votes?" she asks, with a shrug.

-

It's a landslide. Slipstream preens all the way back to Metroplex; Slash is a little more circumspect about it, her proud EM field only detectable from within a few meters. They walk pointedly alongside Windvoice, though Slipstream quickly becomes distracted in an odd contest of wills with Strongarm, staring each other down behind Slash's back. Ironhide tries to fill in on Windvoice's other side, casually whistling, but Starscream glares at him. Ironhide rolls his optics and settles in behind them both.

The Eukarians, Devisens, Velocitronians, and Camiens all cluster around, providing an insulating buffer between her and the two Primes who hung around after Onyx left. Optimus is silent and thoughtful, but still frowns at Windvoice like he doesn't know what to make of her; Alpha Trion is more inscrutable. With the questions Windvoice has concerning Alpha Trion's role in covering up Prima's attack on Kathikon - and everything else that's come up over the past few days - she's less than pleased. She won't be able to get a Starscream perspective on what happened in her absence, let alone an unbiased account, until the dust has settled.

Bumblebee and Soundwave are harder to place, each in their own way. Bumblebee seems content to coast along, with a bemusedly fond expression whenever Starscream scowls in his direction. Tentatively, Windvoice tries to draw Soundwave into the wider conversation, mindful of Elita's comment about Jupiter's potential colony status, but Soundwave remains impassively silent. A winged cassette perches on his shoulder, chirring occasionally in an oddly encrypted binary as she peers at Airazor, curious.

Then, as they reach Metroplex, Ironhide stiffens, two finger flying up to press to the side of his helm as he concentrates on a comm. "Problem," he mutters, to her and Starscream.

"What happened?" she asks, at a normal volume. Starscream looks aggrieved, but from Ironhide's grim EM field, this is something that the Council will need to hear anyway.

Ironhide glances around, his expression full of self-recrimination. "Liege Maximo escaped. Or someone freed him. One of our guards was found dead at the scene, along with ten mechs who look…well."

He pulls it up on a datapad for everyone to see. The blue-tinted visual feed shifts with someone's stride as the unseen mech scans a horrific bloodbath - the greyed-out guard, whom Windblade recognizes as a more recent recruit, with his neck gouged out so deeply that his helm lolls back, and then a trail of equally ashen bodies nearly twice his size. It's difficult to piece together what they looked like originally. Not just because someone tore them apart, but because they're all armor, their alt modes long and almost serpentine, with blades layered into long tails and multiple fan-like, sharp-edged wings that have been turned against their owners and jammed in between the seams of their own armor. Unlike the raw, gory edges of the guard's wound, the worst of the damage seems to be from an energy blade, according to the blue HUD running in the corner of the unseen mech's visor. "'Hide, we got problems," an anonymized voice murmurs, before the feed cuts out.

Windvoice wants to be sick; Knock Out looks genuinely queasy, and the Devisens jerk away before they're sick in unison. Starscream, Ironhide, and too many of the Autobots in the group look unimpressed or merely worried, respectively.

"Onyx tried to take him back," Tigatron says. There's a gruff, absolute certainty in his voice; his and Airazor exchange bleak looks.

"And may or may not have succeeded." Windvoice doesn't know what's missing from this scene, but _someone_ other than that poor guard fought Onyx's forces. Her spark says it wasn't Liege. "We need to talk."

"Oh yes. We do," Elita says, coldly.

\---

_The moon hung over the planet, a dead thing over a dying thing._

\- Hymnia of Tempo, <<[words](http://sunderedstar.tumblr.com/post/111679296406/the-moon-hung-over-the-planet-earth-a-dead-thing)>>

\---

Elita refrains from immediately accusing them all of being in league with Liege Maximo.

Small blessings.

She waits as Windvoice explains how Onyx Prime handed her over the Mistress of Flame. Strika and Obsidian are with her - Strika openly displeased and still wearing the scorch marks from the explosion like a badge of honor. Obsidian limps harder than usual but narrows his optics at the news of Onyx's machinations. All the Councilors are indignant, to various degrees - Knock Out's mood turns positively ugly, with Moonracer taking over when he starts muttering too fast to follow - but only Obsidian's gaze flickers to Optimus, assessing. No one here has forgotten how neatly the Mistress attempted to maneuver Optimus into Windvoice's position, but the others are distracted by the more immediate Prime-related problem.

Windvoice can see both Obsidian and Strika reflected in Elita's mood. By the end of Windvoice's explanation her face is stony. "How did Onyx abduct you from the hospital without being seen?" she asks, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Starscream was monitoring the situation," Windvoice says, with a perfectly straight face. Starscream grits his teeth, his bland smile twitching. "He saw an opportunity to expose the Mistress of Flame's lies by having me entreat Caminus directly, and tried to uncover Onyx's intentions on his end."

"Why are you _like this_?" Starscream asks, almost pleading.

Elita arches a brow. "He let you be taken," she says, flatly.

Windvoice pats him on the arm. "I have complete faith in him, of course," she says, with a perfectly benign, sincere smile.

For some reason, Ironhide snorts explosively, like he took a sip of energon and it went down the wrong pipe. Starscream starts wheezing. Bumblebee thumps both of them on the back.

More than a few people cheer when they reach the government headquarters. Windvoice can't stop to reassure all of them personally, or process the many issues that cropped up in her absence - she's sure her desk is going to be a nightmare, when this is all over - but she smiles more genuinely for the ones who rush to see her, with Ironhide discreetly running crowd control so that the Council doesn't get jammed in the middle of the hallway. Silverbolt comes pelting up shortly, one arm immobilized in a rigid sling, his expression anxious as he inserts himself into the group. At some point, Optimus falls back; she loses track of him in the corner of her eye, and when she checks again, she can't see him or Trion through the crowd. The gathering crowd is charged with excitement, occasionally shouting her name, and soon Windvoice finds herself waving but unable to stop as Ironhide hustles the Council along. The riot of delight and relief crackling in the air is such a contrast to the crowd on Caminus.

It's strange. She hadn't thought that they'd miss her like this.

At long last, they reach a room large enough to hold the Council. Windvoice presses a hand to the wall, leaning her helm against it and taking a moment for herself as Ironhide ushers the crowd clear of the door so they can have privacy. "Metroplex. I'm home," she says, warm inside.

[Home,] Metroplex agrees, with perfect, simple clarity. Happiness thrums through him as a song.

Comprehending something on the scale of a _Titan's_ EM field when she's not beside his space bridge with the Lathe running is…not something she can focus on at the moment. That, what she felt during the bridge to Caminus, the ancillary processors in her back, so similar to the auxiliary processors Titans have scattered throughout their huge frames -

Not right now. Windvoice dims her optics and soaks in Metroplex's happiness before coming back down to earth, where her side still hurts and her half-empty fuel tank reminds her of its existence with a pang. She turns to face the rest of the room, and finds Elita squaring off directly opposite her with an aggressive posture and a piercing stare.

To business.

"Let's start with the basics," Windvoice says, walking up to the table between them and resting her hip on the side of the nearest chair. "Elita. I don't think Liege Maximo committed the crimes we thought he did."

She keeps her voice as neutral as possible. It probably doesn't help.

But if they're going to have to fight Onyx Prime off, she doesn't want the fractious issue of Liege Maximo and Vigilem to reach its breaking point in the middle of it. She'd rather have Elita cut them off now than have her erupt later.

Most of the Council members in the room know of Windvoice's suspicions already. A few of them look alarmed at her bringing it up without warning. The Matriarch shifts in her seat, but remains silent and poised, her hood back up so that she can listen and observe. Starscream rolls his foot with a crack but adds nothing, one of the few people other than the Matriarch seated.

Elita's jaw creaks as she clamps her hands down on the back of her own chair. She must have guessed Windvoice's eventual train of thought back on Luna-1. "Explain yourself."

So Windvoice does. She can feel the weight of the room's attention on her, the atmosphere circulation abnormally quiet in the vents, and while Elita listens with the air of someone set to endure, Metroplex listens with quiet pain.

The realization that Titans can make mistakes, too, is another kind of growing pain. When you're fresh, and every movement is a transformation that alters your fundamental shape, new limbs sprouting and joints bending for the first time, then bending back against themselves as you _become._

Metroplex, Caminus, and Vigilem each made their mistakes, and the consequences of their choices and actions affected the lives and culture of their children for millions of years after, on an order of magnitude Windvoice can barely glimpse, because she's been living it.

She wondered once what the world might've looked like if Solus had lived. If the world might have lived, too. What would they _all,_ all Cybertronians, be like if the Titans hadn't spun apart, their trust shattered? What could they have created, if civil war hadn't consumed them time and again?

_We can never be that. We can never be the same again. So we have to become something new._

Elita shoves the chair away from her and stalks to the window before Windvoice is through. Her broad shoulders are very still. Obsidian is still in a different way, processing, one hand pressed to the seam of his waist as he's lost in thought. Strika folds her arms and refuses to budge; she makes the mouth type she shares with Obsidian so much more intimidating just by altering her stance.

"You've said enough," Elita says, without turning to face the rest of the Council. She locks her hands behind her back. Her voice is neutral, but tight. Windvoice can only make out the blur of light from her optics reflected in the window. "You don't know what you ask of us."

Windvoice cycles a vent and knows it's too much. Even now, all she has is Vigilem's questionable testimony, Vivere's word, a cloak, a mound of questions, and no way to confirm any of it. Elita values truth and her duty, and all Windvoice can offer is uncertainty. "Please. Just consider -"

"- that everything we know is a lie?" Elita snaps. She whips around, teeth bared and optics flashing, and slams her hands on the table. Fireshot jumps at the sudden jolt. "That we've wasted so many years in a cage of our own making? That the task by which we've defined ourselves, passed down to use by those who came before, was an _injustice_? That we've cast ourselves into the Pit to achieve **_nothing_** _?!_ "

Blinking, Windvoice rapidly recalculates. She expected Elita to deny everything as more of Vigilem's lies - this outburst is something else entirely. Behind Starscream, in her right peripheral, someone shifts; she'd half-forgotten Soundwave had slipped in with them.

And Elita's optics burn with fury that's almost on the verge of tears.

She replies, quietly, "Doesn't the truth matter more?"

"If it helps, they _did_ still start a war," Starscream adds, flippantly.

She groans internally. Starscream's supposed to keep his input in conversation with the Carcerians to a minimum for a reason: his sense of humor and his style of politics antagonize Elita to no end. "Starscream. On so many levels. Not helping," she hisses through the corner of her mouth.

He smiles at her demurely; she gets the feeling this is revenge on his part. "You hired me for my willingness to tell you the cold, hard facts," he says.

"No, I hired you because you're a menace." Better Starscream helping than Starscream undermining her to reclaim his power and status, or Starscream bitterly festering in a prison cell like a ticking time bomb. The fact that Starscream has to be gently mechhandled into not acting like a crime lord occasionally fills her with despair, but he hasn't blown up the planet _yet_. Bumblebee coughs into his hand, but he can't quite conceal a wry smile.

Starscream sniffs. "Flattery will get you everywhere."

Elita loses her patience. "Enough of this," she says. Windvoice opens her mouth, but Elita slams out the door before she can apologize or protest. Strika follows.

Obsidian takes a few moments to collect himself, his red optics bleak, but joins his First, his hands clasped behind his back. He shuts the door behind him.

Starscream tuts. Not the optimal outcome. At least it didn't end in a shootout.

"What now?" Moonracer asks.

Fair question. "Send someone to find Liege Maximo, regardless of what he has or hasn't done," Windvoice says, massaging the pinch in her side. "But if Onyx Prime is trying to eliminate members of the Council, and sending his troops to break into Neo-Cybertronian prisons and murder our people, I consider him my priority."

She needs to learn that guard's name. Ironhide will need to contact any friends or endurae they might have had, to learn kind of ceremony they'd want.

"And ours," Tigatron says, grimly. "We will not -"

[Optimus[Prime] approaches.]

Windvoice closes her mouth, resists the urge to bang her head against the table, and glances in gratitude at the ceiling sensors. That's not what she wants to hear right now, but she'd rather hear it from Metroplex than have Optimus show up unannounced. There's a hard edge to the other Councilors' faces when she looks around; Knock Out looks openly cranky.

Apropos of nothing, Bumblebee says, "You do have a way with Titans, don't you?"

He sounds almost nostalgic.

Presumably, Optimus left to take stock of what Caminus's arrival - and the Mistress's dishonor - means for his political aims. Windvoice wishes he'd taken more time to do it; he can't have spent more than thirty minutes away to collect his thoughts.

But, well. She wishes a lot of things about Optimus Prime. And she's not going to hold his hand and walk him through it all over again. If he pushes it, she's sending him back to Earth to think about his life and his choices, where he won't interfere with Neo-Cybertron's current crisis.

"Optimus," she says, when Ironhide admits Optimus at her ping. He has the tact to leave Alpha Trion where he left him, at least. Interestingly, Jazz walks in with a rueful expression, scratching the back of his head like he's unsure how he came to be walking at Optimus's heels; his visor brightens, and he heads around to lean on the wall beside Bumblebee.

Optimus stops short, cutting off his last step. Apparently being confronted by a roomful of scowling, cold-faced Councilors who have run out of patience _can_ make an impression. "…Windvoice," he says, neutrally. "Council."

"How'd your coup go? Not very well?" Starscream asks, idly. Windvoice stomps on his foot underneath the table. But Starscream started out viewing Optimus as an enemy, and his vindication radiates from him in full bloom.

"If you have something to say, hurry up. Otherwise, this Council needs to deal with Onyx Prime's interference," Knock Out says. "Unless you want us to talk about _yours_."

Breakdown plants a wide hand on his shoulder; one watchful optic scans the room, while the other sports a new black metal patch in the wake of the explosion.

Optimus narrows his eyes. "I have never intended to undermine the Council of Worlds. Merely to work with it. To preserve life, to serve Cybertron...and protect Earth."

The omission of [neo] \- Windvoice wonders if it's calculated, or if Optimus is even aware he's doing it, at this point. He lingers on her, wary in a way she doesn't remember.

Maybe she's as cranky as Knock Out. "So you always seem to claim. You justify everything you do with that reasoning. But I can no longer overlook _what_ you have chosen, again and again. I don't think you blind or foolish enough to uncritically believe the Mistress of Flame and her agenda - and yet the fact that you heard me, and set that aside in favor of her misrepresentation of events to seize a seat for yourself on this Council, leaves me oddly reluctantly to trust you in the future," she says.

Starscream leans in a little closer to her and beams at Optimus, his fingers laced under his chin. _Not_ helping.

"If you have nothing more to add?" Moonracer asks, after Optimus's silence stretches long enough. But even her patience seems to have reached its limit. "Any assistance you might offer in understanding Onyx Prime's invasion of Neo-Cybertron?"

Optimus mutely reads the room, once more. Then he cycles a vent. "I have no more confidence in Onyx Prime's good will than you. I've attempted to discern Onyx's motives since he insisted that he would deal only with me, but he proved evasive. Reticent, even when we tried to open a dialog on what he expected when he said he wanted to be involved in the future of Cybertron. I have disagreed with your tactics, but I recognize that he has been deliberately stalling for time since the explosion in the Council chambers by using me."

And then, because Optimus _cannot seem to stop_ , he adds, "I urge you one last to reconsider who you recklessly trust in these matters, Windvoice. I heeded the Mistress of Flame's counsel because her warnings echoed my own grave concerns about how things are being handled on Neo-Cybertron, and how they _were_ handled on Cybertron."

The whole time, he's staring pointedly at Starscream.

How is it possible for someone to have such a good point, and be so unfathomably _thick_ about it at the same time? She knows, _she knows_ , but Optimus doesn't seem to understand that.

Starscream snaps his fingers a few times, almost lazily. "Hmph. Soundwave?"

A deep sigh, and one of the people behind Windvoice slides back into focus. Soundwave has his arms folded, and shoots Starscream an unimpressed look, but obliges. "Optimus: feels attacked. Pressured." Then his speech pattern shifts to a more personal mode. "You mistrust me too, Optimus? And yet you meet in secret with this Onyx, Prime standing with Prime. Calling on Trion, shutting out the rest." The cassette on his shoulder bates, her wings flaring to catch her as he abruptly leans forward, agitated. "You want me to bow my head to you? No Decepticon is ta-"

And then, without warning, Soundwave collapses against the back of Starscream's chair. Starscream flinches with his whole body, whirling in his seat, but Soundwave's already shaking his head. He clutches the side of his head while the cassette trills in her coded binary, pecking the side of his helm urgently.

Windvoice hesitates before reaching out. "Soundwave?" she asks. Soundwave is another leader here, and that collapse wasn't normal, judging by Starscream's frown. What just happened?

Metroplex's voice breaks through the air, alarm underlying his words. [Warning: Worldsweeper D-class P-6 model warship5x detected.]

Optimus's hand closes into a fist by his side.

"Worldsweepers?" Windvoice asks, her processor racing to place where she's heard the term before.

"Decepticon vessels," Optimus says, his gravelly voice barbed.

"Tacky, obsolete hunks of junk!" Starscream retorts, spinning again to glare at Optimus. "Symbol ships. You're only supposed to roll them out when the actual work is done and the world's conquered. No one's taken them seriously since the fall of the Constellate!"

When everyone turns to stare at him, Starscream throws up his arms. "Well, don't look at me like that! I'm as surprised as any of you!" He pushes back his chair, ignoring Soundwave as he slowly rights himself, and prods the wall significantly with a petulant cant of his hips. "Metroplex, serial numbers? Identification tags? Anything _useful?_ Soundwave, what are they broadcasting?"

A long, tense pause. Windvoice thinks for a moment she might need to prompt Metroplex himself - he's no doubt distracted by the inbound ships themselves, and not focused on internal matters - but abruptly he relays the requested information in a monotone. [Sweeper D|P-6 DIN #113 - _Prototype_. Sweeper D|P-6 DIN #611 - _Harbinger_. Sweeper D|P-6 DIN #413 - _Dysfunctional_. Sweeper D|P-6 DIN #319 - _Agitation Train_. Sweeper D|P-6 DIN #321 - _Justice of Tarn_.]

Optimus's optics are bitterly dark with vindication, as if this confirmed all his suspicions and more. But Starscream's brow just furrows in surprised recognition. "The Phantom Fleet?" he says, incredulously. "That flotilla vanished in the Dark Nebula ages ago. What, did they take a two-million-year detour from the war?"

If Onyx Prime can turn up seven million years after the fact, anything's possible. "Any idea who could be piloting them now?" Windvoice asks. They've dealt with belated arrivals from both factions before - sometimes the Autobots are more trigger-happy than the Decepticons when they land. A group who lost contact with the rest of their faction before war's end can still be talked down.

Soundwave digs two fingers into the side of his helm so hard it almost scratches a groove in the paint, slowly shaking his head even as he stares at the ceiling. "I know that mind," he says, grimly. "Those patterns. Scorponok."

Jazz whistles. "Ooooh. Not good."

" _Slag_ ," Starscream says, more emphatically.

"Maybe they come in peace," Vanquish suggests, glancing around the room with a weakly hopeful look.

Judging by the look on Starscream's face, Windvoice doesn't think they're so lucky. When she catches Starscream's eye and raises her brows, he grimaces. "Let's just say that on a scale from good to not-good…this is at least a Turmoil," he says, in a grim approximation of Wheeljack's usual sliding scales.

Scorponok decides to make good on that comparison by firing on them. A resounding _THWOOM_ thunders outside, followed by an explosive impact that makes the floor judder.

For a moment, Windvoice is back in the Council room - no, it's just a street corner, and Chromia's throwing herself between her and the explosion half a second too early -

Then Metroplex erupts into sirens, alarms wailing on high alert, and Windvoice snaps back to herself with a gasping vent. Silverbolt is plastered around her, while Ironhide's between her and the window - the glass shattered, but nothing more.

"We need to extend shields over Censere!" she yells, over the rapid, sharp _pops_ cracking through the air outside.

-

They're strained to the limit, doing that. Independent shields, energy-based and physical, shutter over Censere in an overlapping patchwork to supplement Metroplex's defenses, only some of which Windvoice recognizes from the security force's official inventory of the cities' defenses. Starscream refuses to comment on the matter.

Windvoice ushers who she can out via the space bridge before power reroutes completely, but a surprising number of the Council representatives refuse to leave, so instead she bunkers them down in the deepest rooms possible. The Matriarch of Incaendium remains, as well as the Eukarian representatives. The Matriarch was quiet but firm in insisting that it was not worth the energy cost to bridge her back to Caminus when they're all on the same planet; neither was Windvoice willing to send her out in an escort ship when the skies are a warzone. She seems content to observe from the side of the room, observing Windvoice's efforts to keep things under control. With Ironhide heading the defense teams and Lightbright to act as liaison with Metroplex as they monitor the damage readouts, and Starscream taking care of random details beneath the surface before Windvoice thinks to worry about them, she hopes that the Matriarch takes away a good impression of their competence, if not their luck as far as random invasions go. They've met their quota for the year by now, surely…

The initial salvo centers on Metroplex himself, targeting the main government building with worrying precision. "They've fought Metroplex before. Means they're familiar with key targets," Ironhide points out, once they've activated all the defenses and scrambled the air fleet. They relocate to a better shielded room deep in Metroplex, with a rounded ceiling and an internal window that looks out over the crowded main area where people have come to get under cover. It apparently used to serve as a war room, under Autobot management. He managed to talk Lightbright into reconnecting an old holographic display in this room: the five Worldsweepers are marked in bright purple over the light outline of Metroplex, while the shuttles and individual fliers pouring out of the larger ships are in slightly different shades of violet and magenta. Starscream has already started muttering about stereotyping and long discredited notions of moral absolutism as indicated by color coding.

Ultra Magnus joined them as the severity of the attack became clear; he's almost as familiar with the holographic projection unit as Ironhide. The Eukarians insisted on staying with Windvoice, too, which makes her feel better about the fact that Optimus couldn't resist tagging along for the ride.

Ironhide indicates each main ship as he traces their current position. " _Prototype,_ the flagship, is hanging back just outside of atmo. One attacking here, one confronting Onyx's ship, and two circling Caminus and Vigilem."

Starscream snorts. "Tch. I'm sure Onyx can handle it himself," he mutters.

Windvoice shakes her head. "Scorponok. Give me a run down. Who is he, and where did he come from?"

With a withering glance at Optimus and Ultra Magnus, on the other side of the projection, Starscream folds his arms. He's terse but flippant. "Gladiator, back in the day. Rogue element. He never cared much about the capital-c Cause - he wanted power for those strong enough to seize it. Naturally, he intended to be the strongest. He took over from Megatron once but didn't even try to kill him properly. Amateur." His expression darkens, despite the acerbic quip. "I have…no idea where he's been, lately. He tends to go off the radar for centuries at a time."

Ultra Magnus cuts in. "Scorponok is notorious for repeat violations of the Code of Interplanetary Conflict under the Tyrest Accord, particularly the Non-Interaction clause. He introduces banned technology to vulnerable races under the guise of friendly cooperation and has them develop it further for him until they reach the limits of their usefulness; he often has multiple such campaigns operating at a time. Until approximately ten years ago, he was secured in the Garrus-9 facility. Possibly one of the worst offenders there short of - well, Shockwave."

"We don't talk about Shockwave," Starscream insists.

"My audials are burning," a white and lime green corner of someone's shoulder says, just visible around the edge of the open door.

Starscream slams a fist against the holo projector. "Dammit!"

Without further ado, Shockwave turns and glides toward them. It's been long enough since Windvoice saw him up close in person that his lone optic still shocks her. Apparently, he's disinclined to have his face restored; however, he's all in white, lime green, and pastel blue today, in what appears to be an ongoing trend of painting himself a new set of colors every other week. A four million year streak of being too numb to his emotions to care about paint thoroughly broken. "Old friend," Shockwave says, in that serene tone that toes the line between emotionlessness and irony, as he nods his head to Optimus. Optimus looks deeply uncomfortable, particularly when Shockwave inclines his helm again to Soundwave.

"Do you know anything that might help us, Shockwave?" Windvoice asks, hastily, and trying not to think too hard about what it means to have three members of the Decepticons' former high command in the same room together. Shockwave hasn't left the field laboratories in almost a year now, completely disinterested anything other than his work.

Somehow, she doubts he's here because of the attack. A heads up to Wheeljack might not go amiss.

Shockwave keeps his hands folded behind his back as he circles around. Unlike some empuratees who alter their optic to express more emotional range, Shockwave's eye remains a relentless circle of yellow. "When I left Garrus-9, I negotiated with Overlord for the release of thirty-one other prisoners. Scorponok was among their number. When I became involved in a minor dispute with one of my old protégés, however, Scorponok saw fit to evacuate himself through the airlock."

Ultra Magnus's mouth is pursed in a disapproving moue that would look much more at home on Rodimus's face. Shockwave looks out over the floor below, completely disinterested as he continues. "A pity. But we didn't share much common ground in our respective fields of study, and so he was of no further interest to me after we parted ways." When he turns, he meets Windvoice's eyes with a disconcertingly polite gaze. "The Functionist Council never permitted those with beast alts into the Academies. He's self-taught, with a spark of genius. Even if his proclivities _do_ lean toward the…disturbingly organic, of late. Earth changed him."

"And you don't know where he went after Garrus-9?" Something horrible happened there, if she recalls correctly - but something horrible happened almost _everywhere_. She may be mixing it up with Grindcore; they start with the same glyph.

Shockwave cocks his head to the side. "I could make an educated guess."

But he doesn't _know_. Or if he does, he's not telling.

Either way. Scorponok's had roughly a decade to locate a lost fleet of Worldsweepers, without any checks on his ambition.

On the projection, a flurry of smaller marks rain from the two Worldsweepers over Caminus's white outline. They're no longer in a holding pattern; they're attacking. Windvoice's spark drops sickeningly.

She brought them here for this. The Worldsweepers might not pack enough offensive punch to immediately overwhelm Metroplex's old war modifications, but Caminus has nothing like that to defend himself. Neo-Cybertron's aerial forces can only stretch so far.

Then a line of red cuts through the ranks of hostile fliers, and their markers drop like stones.

The communications terminal behind them crackles. Lightbright, who's been working with Metroplex to try to hail any of the Worldsweepers and demand an explanation, yanks her hands back with a yelp. [Just patch me through,] Vigilem is in the middle of snapping, as Metroplex - apparently of his own accord - obliges without informing him, [you rusted, stubborn old excuse for a _shantytown_ -]

Windvoice clears her throat. "Vigilem?"

Vigilem modulates his tone from acidic to reassuringly confident so fast it gives her whiplash. [Windvoice. Caminus is safe.] This time when the holo projection refreshes, Vigilem's counterattack registers as another bright red bombardment. More of the fliers scatter rather than taking the hit, this time, but it thoroughly disrupts the Worldsweeper's forces.

The real question is, how long can Vigilem keep that up? Knowing what she knows now… "You need to refuel. You're short on resources," Windvoice says, in an undertone, though she knows everyone in the room can hear her. If it takes a living planet to truly fuel a Titan, Vigilem's been starving almost as long as Caminus. The Carcerians may have travelled and traded to obtain what they needed to keep the ship going, but that's not the same.

On the next pass, Scorponok's forces split up to focus their fire on Vigilem, while a smaller contingent takes advantage of his distraction.

Vigilem is not distracted. [I'm fine. I was built for this,] he says, softly, as he cuts a wide swathe through the group over Caminus.

Then he cuts out, absorbed in the fight.

Windvoice swallows hard. "Any messages from Scorponok? Demands?" she asks, once she recovers.

Lightbright shakes her head with a worried look. She pats the communication's terminal very carefully before taking over again. "None. We're hailing them, but no response."

"Why would this Scorponok attack Neo-Cybertron?" Airazor asks. The Eukarians have been quiet as their hosts rushed to get defensive measures in place and launch a counter attack.

"You mean, aside from a third of the population being Autobots, and him being an opportunistic slagmaker?" Starscream says, dryly.

Shockwave raises a hand. "No. Representative Airazor is correct. This does not suit Scorponok's modus operandi," he says. He looks to Soundwave. The two stare at each other in dead silence for a long second, contemplating each other, before Shockwave approaches the communications terminal. "You require a signal connection for better focus, no? Allow me," he says. He reaches around to tap a different code into the terminal, while Lightbright looks vexed at the interruption.

The comm line connects at once.

Lightbright throws up her hands beseechingly at the ceiling.

The video feed flickers on a half-second later. Windvoice hastens to face the terminal, wings raised to obscure the projection behind her, as a purple and green mech with a grey helm, broad visor, and a thin, static smile comes into focus. Something about him - his body language, his expression - pings Windvoice as subtly off. Like he's acting. Even his condescending smirk as his visor lands on Shockwave seems like something he taught himself to do. His lack of affect leaves her cold.

"Shockwave. Long time, no see. Unfortunately, as much as I'd love to rip your head off, I'm here strictly on business," Scorponok says, with a casual shrug. Shockwave doesn't seem bothered by this declaration; he merely tips his helm in silent acknowledgement, as though this is a perfectly reasonable thing to hear.

"Your business involves attacking our Titan cities without provocation?" Windvoice demands, stridently. She's very aware of Optimus on the far side of the projection. His EM field hasn't stopped burning with urgency since the attack started, and she can tell the effort of sitting on his hands while she and her people take point is gnawing at him.

Scorponok shakes his head, scanning her with a sideways twitch of his smile. "Oh, it's nothing personal. You have what I want," he says, which explains nothing at all. "You know how it is."

"A new project?" Shockwave asks, indifferent. He's not even bothering to watch the screen; his focus has returned to the window once more.

Scorponok's smile does that emotionless quirk again. Windvoice has never had such difficulty reading a mech with a visor and a mouth before - it's almost disturbing how flat Scorponok acts. "Cute. Nice try. I told you, Shockwave. We could have achieved great things together."

Optimus breaks in with a flare of abruptly crystallizing aggression. "We will _not_ allow you to harm this world," he says, vibrating with tension that sets Windvoice's dentae on edge.

A cruel glint lights Scorponok's visor from within; it's the first true emotion she thinks he's shown since the confrontation started. "Oh. A bonus. Hello, Optimus," he says, with a widening smile.

"Stop fragging around," Starscream snaps, imperiously. He smacks his hands against the projection table again, his wide wings bristling as he glares at the screen. "Scorponok! Back off, or we'll bl-"

Scorponok squints. "Do I…know you?"

Starscream puffs up with fury for three precious seconds before it explodes out of his mouth. "EeeeAAAUGH! Idiot!"

"Oh." Scorponok tilts his head to mutter to someone off screen. "Starscream."

Then he straightens again, hands folded before him as he scans the whole group again, ignoring Starscream's incensed squawk. "You've all lost your edge, haven't you? Crawling in the mud with Autobots and neutral cowards. Tame. Pathetic." He practically spits the accusation like poison. "Do you know how many of us are left? You all may be content to waste away out here while the Decepticons dwindle and fade in the obscurity of their death throes - but I am not. _I_ will revive the glory of the Decepticons." He presses his broad, three-pronged hand to his chest, almost unconsciously. "We will no longer be a dying breed. My children will rise up and procreate, giving birth to _new_ Decepticon sparks. They will be glorious. No more reliance on dead hotspots or spark splicing. Once they have given rise to generations of organic-framed Decepticons, they can be transplanted back into truly Cybertronian frames and reborn, and extend the reach of the Decepticon empire to the stars once and for all."

Literally everyone in the room stares at him in horror.

Well. Shockwave looks vaguely disturbed, and that's saying something.

Scorponok simply sneers at their shock; even now, the animation that his smugness lends to his face seems like an act. "No need to fret. I have no interest in extending this offer to anyone but Decepticons. The rest of you can perish at your leisure - or when we reach you."

"We decline," Starscream says. "What _is_ it with you and your obsession with meat sacks? I despise agreeing with Shockwave, but Earth _did_ something to you."

"I'm not relying on volunteers," Scorponok says, with a shrug.

And all of this, Windvoice thinks, numbly, is entirely beside the point.

Gently, she nudges out from between Starscream and Ironhide and steps forward, extending her hands. Scorponok glances at her like she's less than a speck.

"There's no need to do that. We've reforged the planet," she tells him. "In a few hundred thousand years, Neo-Cybertron should start to produce hot spots and send them up from the core once more. The Forge of sparks is replenished; we're not dying anymore." Carefully, she offers Scorponok a smile. "We have a future now. You don't need to do this."

Slowly - stiffly - Scorponok stares at her. She has his attention now, she thinks.

Then, in slow-motion, his blank affect contorts. Fractures. She recoils at the disjointed, distorted way that splinters of emotion stretch and spasm across Scorponok's face; his smile widens too far, curling in a way that should make it more genuine but doesn't; his visor burns with a bright, shining hatred, avid and alive; and all the while he stares at her like she's a monster out of his nightmares.

"No," he says, too quietly.

Shockwave shifts. "Scorponok?"

Scorponok raises and slams a claw down on his end of the feed, with such violent force that the picture jerks and Windvoice twitches back a step. "NO!" His head ducks low for a moment, and she catches a glimpse of his alt mode - the horns on his head the chelicerae of an arachnid mouth.

When he speaks again, something is wrong with his voice. "We do not have time to deal with you. Ungrateful. Ingrates," he says, the words as weird and disjointed as his expression. He doesn't look up.

Soundwave emits a low noise and staggers, pressing his hands to his head.

Shockwave stiffens. "Something's wrong," he says. He doesn't even lower his voice; he stares at Scorponok as the mech trembles with fury on the other end of the call.

"Hgk." Soundwave hunches up, supporting himself with one arm on the side of the terminal. His visor is streaming, like he's on the verge of crying. Once again, his cassette chirps with alarm, her optics zooming in and out as she tries to comfort him.

"Soundwave?" Optimus says. He sounds genuinely concerned.

Soundwave just shudders and collapses another fraction at the sound of Scorponok's voice. "Worthless. Garbage. We should have smelted you down - when we had - the chance," Scorponok snarls, with some weird, broken static in his glyphs.

"Cut the line," Starscream says, weakly. But everyone seems frozen in place as Scorponok raises his helm one short, shuddering centimeter at a time.

When he finishes, the expression on his face is complete. It's a masterpiece: the smiling, ravenous hate encompasses them all. "[Remember. Your. Place,]" something says, and _it's not Scorponok talking -_

"I _said_ , cut the feed!" Starscream yells.

A figure shoves its way out of the holo screen, and chops the communication terminal with the blade of her hand.

The comm feed cuts off.

"That's enough of that," Vivere says. She pops neatly over the terminal, swiveling her legs as she lands so that she pivots to face Soundwave. She taps him on the faceplate repeatedly until he looks up, his visor unfocused and blurred. Then she starts tapping him with equal insistence in the center of his torso. "Focus here. You don't want to get a good look at a being like that. Trust me. They are nothing but hunger, and hate, and cruelty. They'll eat you alive."

Her grave, matter-of-fact tone breaks the tension locking the room in place. Windvoice draws air through her vents for what feels like the first time in hours; her chest feels so tight as her spark slowly unwinds. For a second, she'd thought Scorponok had started to claw his way through the screen. "Vivere. What was - wrong with him?" she asks, her voice cracking as hard as Starscream's.

"A Quintesson." Rising from her stoop, Vivere looks up with wide, serious optics. "They're home."

"She…has a spark," Soundwave forces out. Belatedly, he digs his hand into the seam of his chest, like he's in agony. "They are…like us."

"Don't ever think that. _We_ have sparks because they wanted to enslave something alive and sentient enough to be hurt by it. The sadism of it thrilled them." Vivere hops up onto the projection table, reaches through the lines and dots of light sketching the battlefield, and places a delicate finger on the flagship, high above. "It was the Stentarians before us, and the Junkions before them. They have been doing this a long time. And the Matrix isn't ready yet."

She pauses, then turns to Windvoice with a ferocious smile, her optics reflecting the light of the holographic projection. "So you and I will have to do, young Windvoice."

The Muse says it with such perfect confidence that it heartens Windvoice and almost knocks her to the floor, at the same time. She blinks, a warm pulse of wonder in her spark that seems to melt away the horror.

A sharper light flares on the other side of the room. Optimus's chest is transformed apart, the buckled halves revealed as the crystalline shell of the Matrix dims in its casing. "The Matrix is broken. Half was shattered and its dust scattered on Luna-1. This is all that remains," he tells Vivere, brusquely.

Despite what he says, Windvoice can sense the currents of envy and awe that circulate through the EM fields crowded in the room, at the mere sight of the Matrix. None of them can gaze at the Matrix, a holy artifact older than the Primes themselves, and be unaffected.

Vivere clicks her vocalizer impatiently. She frowns at him through the projection, her expression oddly aloof as she steps lightly over to Optimus's side of the table. "Yes, yes, we've already established that you fundamentally misunderstand what a Creation Matrix is, Orion Pax," she says, impatiently.

Then she plucks the Matrix out of his chest, the right handle hooked on her pinky as she gives it a whirl, and crushes it between her palms with a neat flourish.

Optimus stares.

His maskplate pops open, and underneath, his disconcerting mouth is agape.

Vivere pulls her hands apart. The metal of the Matrix dissolves into grey silt, like the _sentio metallico_ of an ancient Cybertronian. The sharp, pale-blue grit of the crystal itself sticks to her hands until she dusts them off with a firm nod to herself. " _There_. Now we can finally move on," the Muse of Life says, spinning to face the rest of the room.

"What have you done?" Optimus says, staring at her like she shot him. He looks ashen. Staggered.

Vivere grins at him, her field dancing with mischief as she pings him on the nose. "Found the next Matrix, of course. He's a work in progress, but such potential!" Then she claps her hands and skips off the projection terminal, beckoning Windvoice. "Come, come. I haven't gotten to fight a Quintesson in simply _eons!_ "

Then, heedless of the stunned disbelief she leaves in her wake, the Muse of Life bounds out of the room.

"Oh, my," Starscream says, gleefully. "I think I _like_ this one!"

The Matriarch of Incaendium's optics are achingly wide, her hands covering her maskplate, beyond words.

-

They manage to catch up to Vivere in the staging area inside Metroplex's internal shuttle bay, where most of Ironhide's forces are working to field more ships and get them in the air to ward off Scorponok's raiders.

Optimus - Orion - falls behind. She thinks the psychological blow of Vivere destroying the Matrix shocked him; he remained motionless in the war room as everyone else filed out, his eyes very far away as he stands, shoulders stiff and chest hanging open. Ultra Magnus hung back for only a moment before catching up to add his expertise to Ironhide's; his expression is troubled, but he says nothing about his old commander, and Windvoice isn't asking. If Orion wants to help -

Well. She's not sure he's in the mindspace to be able to help. Apart from the immediate shock, she's not sure she trusts that the abrupt destruction of the Matrix - and Vivere's unsubtle rebuke - will actually have a lasting effect on his behavior. He seems chronically prone to twisting it around whenever she relies on him, and so far as she's concerned, she doesn't need him inserting himself in the counterstrike efforts unless he promises to _behave_.

(As tempting as it is to leave that determination to Starscream, Ironhide would still be the more diplomatic choice. Subjecting any Autobot to Starscream strikes her as…unfair.)

"Can I get some clarification before we throw ourselves headlong at these things? What the slag is a Quintesson?" Starscream asks, as Ironhide starts sorting out his own ship. Windvoice feels like they might be in the way in the crowded shuttle bay, but they all got caught in the tide of Vivere's momentum, and now the Muse of Life sits with her legs swinging over the windshield of Ironhide's shuttle, peering down at them bemusedly as Starscream makes an irritable bid for her attention.

"Our creators. Our enslavers," the Muse says, succinctly. She kicks up a heel and rotates her foot. "A Type III galactic civilization, well on their way to Type IV. Perhaps once they began as an organic race, but they long ago transcended that to become bio-technoorganisms. They sustain themselves with pure energy, and disdain those who must consume physical material to survive. And yet they crave and hoard wealth, power, and resources. To them, we - all of us, every civilization, not just their creations - are little more than primitive, crawling barbarians. They have manipulated and driven the development of this particular galactic community for their own advantage for eons." She strokes her chin, deep in thought. "I believe they still call themselves the 'Galactic Council' these days."

Without warning, Starscream's hand shoots out to the side and slaps against Soundwave's cassette compartment. "Pay up."

Soundwave gives him a _look._ "Technicality," he says.

Starscream wiggles his fingers with a roll of his optics. "The Council's still a long running organic conspiracy to make us look bad. Pay. Up."

With a deep, resigned vent that speaks to several million years' worth of mutual exasperation, Soundwave starts drawing credit chips out of his subspace as Laserbeak looks mournfully on.

"This war you all had, slaughtering uninvolved organic species and spreading terror, is precisely what they always wanted us to do. We fought a war so that we would no longer be their weapons. Their tools," Vivere says, resting her chin on her fist.

For a moment, her expression looks older than her face. The mischievous light extinguishes, and Windvoice finds herself staring up at someone older than some stars. Vivere broods, and the weight of her regret is palpable.

"I didn't hear _you_ complaining at the time," Starscream says, coolly. He snaps his fist shut as Soundwave lays the final chip in his palm, his expression decidedly frosty. Underneath the ice lurks something uglier.

Vivere sighs. "Much has been left undone, and for too long. The Knights left with Luna-1, and that Luna-1 has returned in such a state fills me with dread. The Forge rings with the despair of those Titans who accompanied them, but not with the Knights themselves." She raises a hand and splays the fingers wide. Her luminous eyes still look too old, and remote. "The Creation Matrix should not have been left alone, unattended, for so long. A drained Matrix could never be a true conduit."

"Mumbo-jumbo," Starscream mutters. When Windvoice shoots him a reproving look, he coughs into his fistful of credits.

-

In the end, she can't exactly go with them. It was one thing to throw herself into an impromptu invasion of Vigilem, back in the day - Titans are her specific area of expertise. It would be another thing entirely to join one of Ironhide's teams and try to fend off someone like Scorponok.

There's a part of her that chafes under the restraint, a little. The part that wants to growl and hurl herself at the sky with her sword in hand and find out who would dare attack Metroplex like this. Who would attack a city full of _people_ like this. It's the sort of over-enthusiastic instinct the cityspeaker temple never quite managed to talk her down from.

It's who she is.

But she's almost more than that.

"With Onyx showing up, you disappearing, and now all this, we need you here," Lightbright says, resting her hand on Windvoice's shoulder in consolation as Ironhide salutes her from the gangway. "No one knows Metroplex better than you. And Vigilem. And Caminus."

Windvoice agrees, with a rueful nod. All things considered, she's lucky that Lightbright's not overawed by the ever-growing list of Titans; she's worried about the attack, but cheerful, with a weight off her shoulder's that's been quietly resting there for a year.

There is one final issue, before Ironhide's team takes off. Starscream's tagging along for the ride, with a lot of optic flickering and silliness about being her right hand - she rolls her optics into orbit as his entreaties get more and more grandiose - and while she trusts Ironhide to arrest and contain if he can, Starscream is…another story. And after Scorponok's bizarre breakdown in the video call, Windvoice is deeply concerned about what they're flying into up there. She tugs Starscream aside at the wide shuttle bay exit, before he can transform. "Do we think that Scorponok is in full control of his actions?" she asks, bluntly. "The way he was talking at the end there - if he's being controlled by this Quintesson, we need to consider that he's being mentally coerced. As much as if his mind were reprogrammed by a mnemosurgeon." The fact that whatever happened to Scorponok hit Soundwave the way it did…

She's not sure how Soundwave's ability works, but this is going to be a problem.

"Scorponok doesn't need an excuse to blow things up," Starscream insists. Then he looks anywhere except at her. He tries to shrug her off, but she keeps her hand on his arm, staring at him with a significant look until he finally, with great to-do, meets her eyes. " _Fine_. We'll neutralize him _if_ we can," he says, with the despondent air of someone making a _profound_ sacrifice.

Honestly. He's ridiculous. She rolls her optics one last time, rises up on her toes, and presses a kiss to his cheek.

It's worth it just to see him open his mouth and say nothing at all.

"Thank you, Starscream," she says, with a bright smile. Then she pats his arm and clears the runway for fliers and shuttles to take off.

Chromia's waiting for her. She's leaning on the side of the door beside Lightbright, with a crooked smile and folded arms. "I think you broke him," she observes, as Windvoice draws near. She raises her head further to look over Windvoice's head. "Yeah, he's still just standing there. I would say 'good job,' but we need to have a serious discussion about your taste in mechs."

"My taste in mechs includes you," Windvoice feels the need to point out. It's the only defensible argument she has. Starscream…is Starscream.

Chromia's lopsided smile is tinged with sadness. "Yeah, well. There you go. Not exactly helping your case," she says.

Then she slings an arm around Windvoice's neck and pulls her close, and they start the trek to Metroplex's mind.

\---

 _lift with your knees, atlas,_  
the heavens are a burden  
but in the starlit ink of constellations  
you have written:

_endure._

\- <<[weight](http://mythaelogy.tumblr.com/post/113303357452/lift-with-your-knees-atlas-the-heavens-are-a)>>

\---

They have a duty.

Elita is their First.

And Vigilem is distracted.

Simple.

-

They've waited a year for an opportunity like this. When Elita hails the rest of her crew, they come. The compact ships shielded from Vigilem's long-range weaponry behind Luna-2 emerge to join them, and those of her people who can join her on Neo-Cybertronian soil, while the others remain in its airspace to monitor the situation from above.

No one has challenged her decision to wait this year. Such a concept is unthinkable on Carcer. Nothing matters more than the security of their ship - her people obey, their loyalty absolute, her leadership indisputable. They trust her implicitly to select the correct path forward. When she chose not to strike at Vigilem directly, and to instead insist on justice from the Council of Worlds, she did not have to explain her reasoning. But she did, and it was understood by all that the results of their most recent census could not be denied.

There is not enough of them left.

When Carcer left Cybertron, disgraced and reviled, the First Veritas-1 took a tally of the sparse hot spot layer within their Titan. Vigilem had not been prepared to colonize a new world as Caminus was. Only a scant, scattered few sparks seethed in the lowest layer of the ship - incidental, of the kind that tended to crop up naturally in the underbelly of a Titan over time. Once they were far enough from Cybertron, they could not even rely on pulses from the core to replenish their numbers. As the Carcerians rationed and calculated what they could support with Vigilem's resources, it was decided that a forged spark would only be harvested when it was necessary to replace a Carcerian who gave their life for the ship. Over the years, as they made the sacrifices necessary to keep Carcer alive and contained - as Vigilem sabotaged systems and even breeched his own core to try to undermine them, his bonds fraying slowly after the last of their speakers died - their numbers dwindled. Soon, in the austerity of their incarceration, the halls grew cold and still. They had enough to crew the ship, and little else.

([There are no accidents on Carcer] is a well-known axiom. Other ships may suffer from wear and tear, from spontaneous leaks or misfortune or mecha error; on Carcer, there was only ever the bitter, subtle vengeance of Vigilem, fulminating beneath the surface.)

Few of the oldest guard remain: Strika, Flareup, Blackout. None of those born on Cybertron, who followed Veritas-1 to the stars, lived to see Cybertron once more. Every First before her died honorably in their service. Elita was of the second to last cohort harvested from the hot spot layer several million years ago, and now her crew is only few hundred strong. Not enough to storm a living, waking, _waiting_ Vigilem and expect to survive. From the moment he was freed, he was beyond their ability to reclaim. Their casualties would exceed their survivable limits.

They cannot afford to falter now. They can't lose this opportunity.

And everything is wrong.

Elita can feel it crumbling in her hands. She never thought, when she assumed command in the wake of Acies-1's sacrifice, that she would become one of the weak links in their chain of duty and penance. Would Acies have wavered so? Is this hesitation rational, or a sign of her own failings? Some flaw in her spark - as hard and adamant as diamond - that they overlooked when chose her?

Doubt slips in, insidious and cold, and it wears the face of someone whose frightening, terrible honesty burns away impurities like an incinerator.

And in the end, when Elita questions everything that she knows -

\- they have an older duty.

When she addresses her people, she watches as their faith in her splinters. Whatever comes next, there are those who will never trust absolutely again: who will question, and challenge, and defy her and whoever comes after her. They'll think they _know_ better.

Obsidian draws a cutting salute across his spark and bows more deeply than she has seen in millennia. Strika's expression through the comm screen is bleak - but she too bows, the silent acceptance of grief in her optics as deep as it was the day Lugnut fell.

Elita clenches the arm of her chair, teeth gritted, white-knuckled, until every squad leader bows in the face of her unyielding, enduring will.

[Dūrāmus].

-

The Camien guards do not recognize them. They _are_ Camien now - the Vigilant who chose to stay and protect Caminus so long ago are long greyed, and those that they trained to take their place are Caminus's children through and through. With their Titan mid-transformation, they have no solid vantage points from which to defend the city. When Elita and her squadron cut past Caminus's northern edge, a few of the Camiens on the ground shout and muster their forces. But Elita's squad speeds past in a cloud of torn up dirt clods and organic matter, their all-terrain alt modes eating up the distance as they wheel around and use the shadow of Caminus's shuddering, shifting layers as cover to approach Vigilem.

He's sprawled out in city mode to maximize the spread of his ground-to-air ordnance. If he'd restricted himself to root mode, much of the weaponry would've shifted inward; if he had taken to orbit, it would've meant abandoning Caminus. Elita has never seen it before with her own optics, but all Carcerians memorize the theoretical map of Vigilem's long-forbidden city form as a rite of passage. The streets, the buildings, and the gaping holes where Caminus used to lay. Like this, he's vulnerable - his sensors aimed outward, his infrastructure laid out so that he cannot simply dump one down the garbage chute whenever he so chooses.

Vulnerable doesn't mean oblivious. A turret veers around on its pivot and sprays the road, shredding through Lancer's right wheels. Greenlight skids to a stop as Lancer fishtails and transforms to provide cover while the rest of the squad shuffles automatically to cover the hole in the formation. The street splits in two, launching one of the center mechs flying in a low arc to slam into the side of a building. Another turret joins the first when they round the corner, and Elita can sense a grinding earthquake begin to rise through the city layers. Heavily fortified blast shields punch up through the streets ahead of them to cut off direct access to Vigilem's space bridge quarter and the processor and ancillary processor chambers.

His streets used to be a killing field. Emphasis on 'used to.' The Carcerians did all they could to disarm him, forcibly rearranging things so that they could utilize his weapons while locked in ship mode. The route they're taking doesn't lead over the smelter units, nor does Vigilem have time to shift such a volatile part of his anatomy halfway across the city to dump them in.

But they're not aiming for the processor chamber. In fact, as Elita revs her engine and parkours off the ramp of the upturned street to reach a raised sector, the turret fire slackens off as they delve into side streets of little to no strategic value. The guns turn to follow them, disturbingly aware, but Vigilem waits for her to play her hand. By the time she reaches her destination, an unassuming, oblong dome, almost all his artillery is tied up in shooting down two hostile jets who foolishly try to strafe over Camien air space.

It galls her, still.

But they swore an oath. The oldest oath.

Elita steps out of alt mode and walks the last few meters forward, disregarding to casual shot Vigilem takes at her shoulder. She knocks her knuckles on the curve of the dome, unmoved, as what remains of her squad guard her with their bodies.

"Well?" she asks the waiting air. "I know there are guns here that can only be fired by an external operator."

[Because you implanted them,]] Vigilem says, too pleasantly. Elita represses a shiver at the sound of his voice. [Unnecessary. I _will_ kill you, Elita.]

All the First of Carcer accept that as their fate. The final price every Carcerian pays for the Vigilant's failure. One day, they would run out of bodies.

"Perhaps," she says. To hear and listen to the treacherous voice of Carcer is to be irrevocably compromised; to answer him is unforgiveable. There will be those who never trust her again.

Her hand is firm and steady as she lays her palm on the dome. "But not today."

The taller building to their east trembles faintly; they couldn't remove his ability to topple skyscrapers on them without completely dismantling him. In Strika's absence, the strongest of her squadron spreads his arms wide, braced to take the hit and buy them time. Elita tries to find the tipping point: the balance between truth and duty.

She's seen the faith in Windvoice's eyes; the way she wants things to be better, strives for it with open palms.

Elita cannot believe like that. But the thought that all along, they have done something unforgiveable, hypocrites of the highest order -

They need to _know_ the facts. Only then can there be true justice.

Now she waits, and wonders if any of it ever mattered.

Vigilem's voice is professional. Neutral. […No. Not today.]

The dome cycles apart, and the railgun within powers on when Elita scans her credentials. She kneels on the mounted seat, kicks the pivoting mount around, and pulls the trigger as the railgun swings into position.

It takes everything in her power to grit her teeth and aim at the Decepticon ships above. Despite the recoil dampeners, the railgun hits like a punch every time it fires, and Elita lets each shock roll through her, a welcome distraction from the way it grates against her every instinct not to turn her fire on Vigilem himself. Across the city, the five other squadrons sound off as they reach other isolated weapon stations.

And above, Strika and Obsidian's fleets close on the Worldsweepers like a pincer.

SK: Strika team has boarded hostile _Harbinger_. Engaging.  
E1: Ground to air support should be marginally less antagonistic. You are clear to proceed, Obsidian.  
OB: Yes, my First.

If what she suspects is true, perhaps there can never be forgiveness - from her people on one hand, or Vigilem on the other.

But they can save Caminus.

\---

_Guess who's back?_

_Back again?_

\- [English Romantic poet, Lord Byron of Earth, probably](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ), <<Byromania>>

\---

He wakes up.

In the wrong mode. He can feel the wrong fingers. Learned that one through trial and error - something wrong with his root mode. The world's a mass of noise and light and sensor alerts that turns his visor into a kaleidoscope of nonsensical shapes and makes something throb in his processor. More than a headache. Too sharp, too deep, and every time he moves it spirals harder.

It abates in alt mode. He feels - more solid. Braced. Easier to make connections, to focus long enough for the blaring noise in his audials to translate to words again in his processor. People look like people again. Some - not all - of the internal sensor alerts cut off, and he can differentiate between what's real and what's memories and what's Overlord forcing him watch the Decepticons tear people apart while his frame is drilled to the wall of his cell and what's Skar dying as the rage eats his mind and what's Scorponok peeling his helm apart to access the pain centers directly - "Time to skip the middlemech," he'd murmured, with that thin smirk that barely bends his mouth, that looks more like something he once heard normal mechs did with their faces than an actual expression -

And then there was pain.

Grimlock cringes, but the pain doesn't come. The memory's still there, too close, too real, threatening to overwhelm his cortex in a shrieking flashback - but when he shakes his head, trying to stave it off, it works. His helm feels muffled, heavy, almost cushioned; he's dazed for a dangerous moment, trying to remember how to online his optics and visor and raise his hand at the same time. Someone - someone said something about his head. He caught that much, but then they'd stopped inspecting him in alt mode, where he could cock his head at them curiously but patiently, and told him to transform so they could take a look at processor in root mode -

And the words left. Without them, it's so much harder to put things in order. To understand what different badge shapes mean, let alone names, faces, glyphs. Everything's a jagged, fractured mess. Has he hurt someone this time? Everyone was vaguely familiar in the room. He could hear Chromedome - "looks like someone went in and - not connecting - unequal pressure points - wearing away the outer layer." But at the time it just sounded like "adfkjsdlfaskdhgalkhln," and he only managed to lay still through it all because Misfire was there, keeping up a constant stream of chatter in his other ear. He should be able to piece it together once he's changed over. Misfire's patient about that.

Wait.

Slowly, Grimlock rescans the memory. It has two time-stamps - one from two days ago, and another from eighteen hours ago, when the metadata shows Ratchet's medical override instructed his processor to run a deep defragmentation of his memory and sensory cortex, and re-interpret all auditory sensory input from the last week. The earlier version has garbled noise where Chromedome's voice should be; the latter has gaps, but the words that did survive the transmission from his functioning audials to his misaligned processor make perfect sense. No need to pry it apart and break each glyph down to its components, hunting for a match in the words that he does have.

He can _read_ the metadata. His mind's been a bright blur for so long, riding on the edge between confusion and pain, that the sudden clarity of his thoughts comes as a belated shock. Right here, right now, his mental voice isn't stumbling and kludging words together with the right sounds -

He sits upright. The magnets keeping him clamped on the berth are nothing. His medical record is right there where he can _read_ it. Notes with Spinister and Ratchet's codes that detail the repair and outright reconstruction of parts of his sensory connectors where they were grinding down the outer circuit layer of his cortex; heavily reinforced stabilizers to keep his processor suspended and balanced in both root and alt mode as well as during transformation; a complete flush of his pain processing center to clear out a reiteration virus exacerbating the flashbacks; other miscellaneous repairs of neurocircuit damage and scarring throughout his frame and protoform left by Scorponok; and the defrag and reanalysis as a test, to see if they could restore some of what the aphasia and sensory processing issues left garbled.

There are other notes, with other codes. Rung, Chromedome. Torture, PTSD, potential emotional instability, the effects of having a chunk of his memory banks that may never contain more than a clouded, opaque fog of broken sensory input.

But it's not a blur. The words may not all be there, but the timestamps are now legible, and he knows who he is, and where he's been, and who was with him.

Funny how things work out.

"No one tells us anything around here," Misfire is complaining to Spinister by the door, his hands on his hips as the two of them peer out into the hallway. "First the giant eye in the sky, now thi-"

Misfire must catch a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye; he resets his optics and whips around, automatically holding up his hands placatingly as Grimlock rises from the medical berth. "Hey, hey, big guy. You probably shouldn't be up yet - things got a little crazy around here," Misfire says. He cringes with his whole body when Grimlock rubs the back of his head. Grimlock can identify the heaviness now - he just needs to compensate for the extra weight of the stabilizers cushioning his brain - and runs his fingers along the seams where they had to peel his head apart. "IIII wouldn't poke at that, Grimsy - Spinister! Oy! Can you tell for sure if they scrambled his brains now?"

Spinister's head swivels around like an owl's; he seems nonplussed to realize that Misfire isn't beside him anymore. "Brains, plural?"

Misfire starts gesturing for Spinister to come over by flapping his hand wildly. Spinister just squints at the offending hand in suspicion. Grimlock contemplates the side of Misfire's face for a moment, bemused.

He'd half-hoped that Overlord had burned it out of him. Making him watch the torture, the assault, the pit fighting, the dying all going on outside his cell, while he could do nothing to make it all stop. Caring about people never ends well. He always winds up with something to lose.

Then Grimlock seizes up.

Misfire's busy scolding Spinister into motion when he notices Grimlock reaching out. "- ooooOHHHH not the head!" he finishes, still babbling right up until Grimlock closes his mouth for him.

"Hush," Grimlock says, subvocally.

Misfire nods his head frantically. Then his mouth pops open to answer on reflex, and Grimlock covers his face with his entire hand to forestall the inevitable.

The figure that crawls past Spinister's turned back continues out of sight, moving down the hallway. No public ID that registers on his HUD. He lets his sensors extend their range, experimentally, and represses a growl that threatens low in his engines.

A spider.

Slagging arachnids, everywhere he goes. And this one sneaking around a hospital, avoiding any watchful eyes.

When the trespasser's far enough away that they probably think they're safe, Grimlock removes his hand and stalks to the door. Misfire grabs his entire head to make sure it's still intact, looks pleased, and follows him. "Got it," he stage-whispers, loudly. "But also what the slag was that about?"

Grimlock leans out the door, narrowing his visor and checking both ends of the hall. Nothing. "What happened while I was out?"

Spinister grunts, trying to follow Grimlock's line of sight. Misfire has other priorities. "You can talk! I mean - this is - wow!" he exclaims, slapping Grimlock on the back. "Anyway, there's a giant eyeball floating over the city, but we're ignoring it right now because we're under attack."

…How long was he out, again? "Under attack…but not by the giant eye," Grimlock repeats. Just to clarify.

"Things have gotten weird since you went under, Grim," Misfire confides, with a shake of his head and a shrug. "But we're still three-dimensional and no one's hallucinating dead people, so it's not as bad as it could be."

Point taken. Grimlock occasionally thought in his more lucid moments that maybe he was imagining things, but the Scavengers just tend to run into some strange slag.

But if they're under attack, that changes things. He reaches back and draws his sword, dimming his optics' brightness as he steps out into the hall. His sensors have the scent now; no need to broadcast his position. Misfire has to elbow Spinister in the side to get him to pay attention, which means Spinister emits a loud squawk of binary, but they'll manage. Grimlock slips down the hall, noting the closed doors and the absence of nurses and medics. If this is the recovery ward, they're probably tied up in triage with battle casualties elsewhere.

So. Who's recovering here that would warrant a spy skulking around the place? Old instinct says a Decepticon after someone high up in the Autobot ranks - but, well. Times've changed. Misfire sticks to his side like glue, taking two strides for each of Grimlock's, screwing his mouth up in a faux-serious expression and humming the theme song of Shoot Shoot Bang Bang. Spinister has a gun out, but that just means he'll shoot a door if it opens too abruptly.

His people.

His grip tightens on the sword as they creep past another closed ward. Up ahead, the sensory trail ends at another shut door. Only a faint light coming through the window set in the door. Grimlock isn't built for stealth but he falls into a crouch, nudging Misfire and Spinister behind him with a cautious arm.

The security on the door should probably require medical credentials. The trespasser may have closed the door behind them, but the security panel's screen fizzles with static rather than a pale blue. A few stray glyphs flicker in the static - nothing coherent enough to decipher.

Frag it, then. No sign of any other guards.

Grimlock kicks the door in. A furious hiss rips out of the vocalizer of a black and purple mech as the light from the hallway exposes her. She rips her hand free from the controls of a set of three CR chambers and skitters into the space behind the chambers in a flurry of motion.

"We _probably_ shouldn't break - ohhhkay, that's a lot of legs," Misfire says, with a grimace. "Good thing Krok's not here. Yiiikes."

Tracking her abrupt, rapid movements in the shadows strains his optics - Grimlock'll catch a glimpse of a leg around the curve of one cable, then snap to the far end of the row at another twitch. It's tempting - real tempting - to transform and lunge at her the old-fashioned way. A swing of his tail would smash her cover to smithereens.

And probably kill whoever's in the chambers, if they're not stable without live support.

A flicker in his peripheral. _How_ -

He cuts the thought off and brings his sword down, missing by inches as the trespasser yanks herself back on a length of silken metal. Then she's a blur scuttling up the wall and onto the ceiling.

He slams his fist backward over Spinister's head to hit the lights.

Enough fragging around.

The thinner, subtle threads stand out more in the uncompromising overhead light. Half the room's covered in a fine web; when the trespasser taps one thread, a dozen more shift and twitch, filling his vision with distracting motion.

But she only has so much room to maneuver. Grimlock slashes indiscriminately at the ceiling, well-aware that she's darting out of reach, and slices through the web so that the ends hang in tatters. Spinister fires without discrimination or context, his blaster fire splattering the ceiling as she dodges.

Then she dives without warning and slams bodily into Misfire, so his only shot goes wild and pings the corner of the far CR chamber's readout. Misfire lets out a yelp, flailing his arms as the spider transforms and pulls him into a headlock. "Whoa whoa whoa! Time out!"

A set of thin, sharp needles unsheathe from her fingers. Misfire's voice shoots up an octave as he flails, trying to yank her off his back. "Look, can we put the needles away?! Holy f-"

She tries to shove the needles under the edge of his helm. Spinister aims at Misfire's face.

Grimlock grabs the arachnid by two arching legs, rips her off him, and flings her at the wall opposite with a growl low in his engine. She slides down but recovers, staggering a little as she rights herself. Grimlock roars after her, slamming into alt mode and ramming the wall head-on when she throws herself out of the way of his charge. He swings around, catching both her and the rightmost chamber with his tail and hooking her around to hit the next wall.

She rolls upright, thin face streaked with lines of energon. Grimlock charges again, jaws wide - and she slips under him, latching onto one of his arms and swinging her alt legs over his shoulders as she stabs the needles into his chest.

_No._

Grimlock rears back, thrashing. His back slams into the nearest CR chamber and smashes it. He can't reach her at this angle; he slides in the sluicing waterfall of CR fluid, staggering around the brown and purple mech who slumps onto the floor in a limp pile. "You think I can't tell where your mind is, in this form?" she asks, with a smirk. The needles retract and shoot back out as she probes his chest, searching for his processor. "Beast modes are my specialty!"

Slag it. Grimlock veers around the remaining CR chambers and smashes through the wall opposite. It's the outer corridor - through the window that lines the wall, he can see the city weirdly lit outside, like there's an eclipse. Misfire charges out after them; instead of trusting to his questionable aim, he flings his weapon aside and tackles her, clinging onto her back as the two of them swing wildly from Grimlock's upper body. "No! Get off him!" Misfire yells. When Grimlock transforms in a rush, shoving her away with a shifting piece of his right arm, the two crash to the floor. "Wait, no! Get off _me_! Spinister!"

Spinister vaults over the crumpled remains of the CR room's wall, guns blazing. Whatever he's using punches holes right through the window, spraying reinforced glass outward. Grimlock knocks the trespasser away once more before she can get her needles in Misfire and draws his sword once more.

Too slow. For a moment, she stands before the window, the weird shadows of the eclipse obscuring all but part of her smile. One of her arachnid limbs twists at a crooked angle, but that doesn't stop her from chuckling, one hand in front of her mouth. "That should do the trick, anyway," she says, sweetly.

Then she bolts sideways and throws herself at the glass. It shatters all the way on impact and she leaps out into open air.

Grimlock doesn't jump; he walks off the edge, thrusting the sword into the wall and using it to brake as he drops. Misfire and Spinister fly out after him, belatedly.

But she's already gone. A metallic thread of silk drifts in a mild breeze before trailing off into nothing. Grimlock thinks he catches a whiff of her scent before it vanishes in the burn of engines and cannon fire overhead, but the trespasser vanishes into the dark streets of Metroplex. Grimlock hangs halfway up the side of the hospital building for a long moment, debating the merits of tracking her down with what appears to be a battle raging overhead.

But it sounded like she already got what she came for. With a growl, he starts clawing his way back up the building. A few nurses goggle at him from the crack he carved in the wall two floors down from the recovery ward, but he ignores them.

When he reaches the shattered window, Misfire and Spinister break off their search pattern and fly back. Misfire stumbles on one foot before catching himself on landing. "Slag. And I thought the tree people were bad," he says, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. "You okay, big guy?"

Grimlock grunts. "Better."

An understatement. He _wants_ to tear off into the streets after her; he wants to savor the glory of _clarity_ , of able to comprehend his own thoughts and words for the first time in forever. Of being able to fight someone and not lose track of himself in the rage and the blind onslaught of sensory input.

But now he's too aware of how much he's missed.

Misfire hops back into the CR chamber room, apparently on a mission, and Grimlock follows him while Spinister idles in the corridor. Misfire walks over and squats beside the slumped mech who fell out of the broken tube and pokes at him. A few alarms blink and whistle on the control terminal, informing them that the patient's monitoring lines have been yanked out, but no one's arrived to check out the disturbance yet.

With some effort, Misfire shoves the limp mech over so they can see his face. Grimlock tenses; badge aside, he vaguely knows the face. Blast Off, with the maskplate retracted. "Hey. Oh man, Combaticons. This is the big leagues, huh. What were they doing back here?" Misfire prods the Combaticon's cheek repeatedly, his expression curious - then calculating. He clears his vocalizer and says, loudly, "Hey, you alive? Do we need to shove you in another tube, or…"

Misfire trails off. When the Combaticon remains a limp, damp pile of non-responsive, he whistles. "Oooh, hey. Spinister, did you want new feet? These might be the right size."

Spinister glances up, spooked, and stares at them through the hole in the wall. Then he narrows his eyes, walks out of sight, and comes in through the open door instead to come squat beside Misfire.

Largely disinterested, Grimlock glances over the remaining CR chambers. Two more Combaticons - Onslaught himself, and Brawl on the far end. Must be one pit of an amnesty, if it covers them and Starscream and slag only knows who else. He knew the war ended at some point after Scorponok tore him out of Garrus-9 and sealed him away, but the Scavengers have been isolated enough from the actual armistice - apart from binging on the new entertainment broadcasts - that Grimlock didn't know the shape of what was happening on Cybertron until they arrived. How are they handling mechs like Overlord, who enjoy what they do?

And then there's the matter of what he glimpsed when he was outside. Grimlock paces back to the outside window and folds his arms over his chest as he glowers at the sky.

The giant optic craft is one thing - unsettling, but also unfamiliar. An unknown element. No sign of Decepticon branding.

The Worldsweepers?

Those he knows.

Scorponok.

Misfire's offhand commentary on the measurements of Blast Off's feet cuts off abruptly a nervous laugh. "Heeey, you're alive! Your feet are definitely still attached! For sure. Positive. Just, uh, let me screw this on this real quick -"

Grimlock glances back over his shoulder, mood thoroughly soured.

Without warning Blast Off lurches upright, his purple visor flaring as he sucks in a wheezing vent and splutters more CR fluid.

Then he seizes Misfire by the collar and drags him forward, his expression livid.

"Where. Is. Starscream."

\---

_Come, let us march against the powers of heaven,_

_And set black streamers in the firmament,_

_To signify the slaughter of the gods._

\- [Tamburlaine the Great](http://sunderedstar.tumblr.com/post/170177379406/gatheringbones-tamburlaine-the-great-part-ii), <<Part II: Act V, Sc. 3 (48-50)>>

\---

_Elsewhere_

Starscream doesn't know how he wound up stuck on a team with Ironhide and a bunch of other groundpounders.

All he knows is that they can't see your face burning if your alt mode doesn't have a face.

He flies up through the atmosphere at top speed, relishing the chance to test his paces in a vacuum, then wastes time waiting for their ship to finish lollygagging around and join him at the _Prototype_ 's shuttle bay doors.

Scorponok's defenses are inexcusably lax; he barely puts up a show of firing at the shuttle as it approaches before petering out. When they _finally_ deign to arrive, Starscream transforms and magnetizes his feet to the outside of the shuttle bay just long enough to crack open the security terminal and disconnect two key wires.

The bay doors yawn open immediately. Honestly, the Worldsweepers were just _sad_. Starscream's tempted to try scanning his credentials to see if these particular ships still allow entry to all (former) Decepticon high command by default, but if that worked he would be forced to offline himself from second-hand embarrassment.

"Honestly. He's been driving around in this junker for _how_ long, and they still haven't fixed the old back hack?" he complains, after Ironhide disembarks and the shuttle bay repressurizes. "Sloppy. Just sloppy."

Ironhide grimaces at Starscream's caustic tirade, but he's been in a better mood since Windvoice got back. Things _do_ run so much more smoothly with her around. "Too easy. Why do I feel like we're walking into a trap?"

Starscream rolls his optics as the rest of the team joins them, then blasts open the internal door. As if Scorponok didn't notice them boarding already. "Why must you tempt fate?" he sighs. It's a rhetorical question - he's surrounded by Autobots and one neutral, who was probably an Autobot to begin with. Not a drop of common sense between them. The wide hallway leading away from the shuttle bay is eerily empty, and he grimaces as he saunters ahead and waves for Ironhide to follow. "It probably is a trap. Watch your feet. This _is_ Scorponok we're talking about."

"Why is he here, again?" one of Ironhide's underlings mutters to his partner. He probably thinks Starscream can't hear them at the back of the formation.

"My stunning good looks, my razor-sharp wit, or my impeccable memory for the interior layout of the old D-class models? Take your pick," Starscream fires back. He tosses his head, scanning the branching hallways before them with half-slitted optics. Still no guards. Either Scorponok has them clustered for an ambush, or he's critically understaffed. Or both. The security team fans out cautiously at Ironhide's direction, so they have guns pointed behind them as well as to either side.

Starscream makes for the medical bay first. Some Worldsweepers were customized, but most started with the same basic template. Knowing Scorponok, he's either on the bridge or in the medical/science sector. The badge shape wasn't exactly conducive to normally-shaped rooms - at some point, you had to compromise and stick three-sided habsuites in the fiddly triangle shaped bits. Ah, the price one pays for patriotism.

He keeps his sensors maxed out as they near the right area. Most of the doors bear quarantine and hazard markers - ugh - but no security protocols appear to be in effect. Starscream can hear the faint hum of equipment - and still, no one to monitor it all. He pushes open what should be the door to the main medibay, against Ironhide's protest, just to check and see if there are any convenient hostages they could nab on their way up. Not that Scorponok is the type to be bothered with retrieving anyone simple enough to get themselves captured (survival of the fittest, or some such nonsense) but it's the _principle_ of the thing.

Instead, Starscream opens the door, and finds himself staring at a long medical ward that stretches twice as far in both directions as the standard D-class medibay. They've torn out the interior walls to widen the space, and as far as he can see, they've replaced the medical berths with a row of at least two hundred hideous contraptions. Mechanical tentacles ending in pointed prongs, an odd set of triangular teeth arranged in a hexagon in the center of the slab, and a heavy set of adjustable restraints arranged in coincidentally Cybertronian-proportions. Over the crest of the headrest, Starscream can see tanks full of purple liquid attached to the back of the apparatuses, burbling as the fluid circulates.

"Hm. That's new," he comments, and then closes the door before Scorponok can get any bright ideas about turning the tentacles on. Eugh. Scientists. He'd thank whatever poor sod of a Functionist denied his own application for the Jhiaxian Academy for sparing him this, but that particular bureaucrat died in a mysterious accident which Starscream had absolutely no part in arranging almost four million years ago.

Then he turns, just in time to hear a faint click.

He meets Ironhide's widening eyes for a fraction of a second before the floor drops out from under them, dumping the rest of the team into the floor beneath. Blaster fire erupts immediately on all sides, and energy shields flicker into place as Ironhide bellows orders.

Starscream stays very still, the edges of his thrusts balanced on the threshold of the door. After waiting a few moments for the floor to seal under him again, he cycles a long-suffering vent and kicks said thrusters on to hover until he reaches solid ground again.

They'll be fine. Probably. He counts Scorponok's forces by the red and purple optics, and they don't outnumber Ironhide's team by enough.

For something the size of a Worldsweeper, this isn't enough mecha. Not to mention D-class's unfortunate tendency to crash-land if even the slightest thing goes out of alignment. Starscream adjusts his estimation of how desperate Scorponok must be to try to attack Neo-Cybertron with these kinds of numbers higher. Slag, the other 'sweepers fielded more people in the first wave than Scorponok seems to have on this entire flagship. Starscream knows why _he_ never bothered to spend more time than strictly necessary around Scorponok - aside from him being a thoroughly unpleasant person, of course, Scorponok isn't the most sparkling conversationalist - but why were they so eager to ditch this ship in particular?

Might as well ask the mech himself. If nothing else, Starscream can taunt him about being so hilariously unpopular that his own crew wouldn't stick around. Scorponok never had the charisma necessary to lead; that, plus the mutiny back in the day, is why he never truly advanced under Megatron. He expended most of his persuasive talents deceiving gullible organics over the years; as if _that's_ hard _._ You know you've hit rock bottom when even Shockwave of old thought you were too unlikeable to be worth dealing with.

Anyway. Back to business. Ironhide can handle things here. Starscream dismisses the rest of the science ward and heads for the bridge. He picks some flecks of debris out of the transformation seam of his arm as he walks, keeping up a running commentary in an unimpressed drawl as he goes. "Alright, alright. I already know you're going to come bursting out of the floor, or the wall. The pit trap thing got old centuries ago, you clichéd hack." A _tsk_ of his vocalizer. He starts peering around corners as he exits medical and reaches the central corridor again, and sing-songs, "Come out, come out, wherever you -"

Someone drops out of the ceiling and kicks him in the head.

The bleep of surprise he emits is embarrassing.

Arcee is one thing - Arcee is a nightmare in hot pink - but missing someone clumping in the vents? He'll never hear the end of it. "Freeze, Autobuster!" his assailant crows at the top of their shrill vocal range, and Starscream shakes his head and recovers just in time for the tiny mech to nail him in the shin. It doesn't do more than chip the paint; it's the audacity of such a horrendous opening line, more than any kind of pain, that leaves Starscream momentarily dumbstruck.

And something else. He can't quite put his finger on it. The voice, maybe? Ordinarily if someone clocked him, he'd retaliate with extreme prejudice - but something freezes him instead. Frowning, Starscream sizes up the mech jabbing at his kneecaps. When they keep shouting silly little battle cries, he rolls his optics and pinches them between the wings to hoist them up to eye level. "What the slag are you supposed to be? A Minicon?" he asks, skeptically, as he inspects them. Slim yellow and orange armor, with red accented finials and antennae flapping on either side of their helm. A dark red visor that looks oddly clunky on their face, and a battlemask. Whoever this is - and why don't they have a public pronoun ping, if not a full ID? This isn't [they] pronouns, it's just Starscream's best guess - they have a ridiculously tiny alt oddly similar to Windvoice's, complete with the same VTOL fans embedded in their miniature wings.

The little brat kicks him in the nose.

Starscream drops them and they land in a ludicrous action pose with tiny, tiny guns blazing. "I'm a Decepticon! Sari, the Great and Terrifying! You'll never take me alive, Autoloser!" they shout at the top of their lungs as he ducks under their line of fire.

The sense that something's…off pings him again. Something he just thought.

Lungs?

Starscream grimaces, a sinking feeling in his tanks as he reaches down and twists the gun out of the little mech's hand. "You think _I'm_ an Autobot? How adorable. Who let you have live weaponry?"

They leap back with a 'hup!' and transform two additional shoulder-mounted guns out to start firing again. Starscream gingerly picks them up and points them toward the wall as he leans in and squints at their masked face. Then, with what is for him an exceedingly generous amount of care, he plucks the mask off. The visor pops up in reflexive surprise, and, well -

That's a human face.

 _That's a human face._ They glare at him with red eyes, the outer lens weirdly wet and organic, their brown protoform not nearly as metallic as it should be.

Regretting everything, Starscream slowly puts the mask back on. "Oh, for - Why are all of our scientists _like this_?" he complains, as he dumps - her? You have to _guess_ with humans; it's disgustingly inconvenient - on her aft.

Unfortunately, he realizes his mistake too late. The little abomination of science bounces back up, her antennae wiggling as she stares up at him with dawning awe. "You're a Decepticon?" she says, almost reverently. Then she pops back up onto her feet with a lifting gust from her fans and leaps up to seize his hand, yanking him down with her weight. She's not quite heavy enough; she winds up dangling on the end of his hand, feet kicking in midair as she tries to tug him along in earnest toward the bridge. "Then you need to help us! The enemy is on board! She's hurting Papa!"

For frag's sake. Starscream stares despondently back the way he came. Where's an Autobot when you need one? They _like_ dealing with human spawn. Of course they would cruelly abandon him in his time of need. "'Papa'?" he repeats.

Hm. Well. He _was_ looking for a hostage. Sniffing, Starscream lowers his hand so the little weirdo's feet hit the ground. "Great. Now he has to live, because I'm never letting him live this down. Take me to Scorponok, scraplet," he commands, with a grand wave of his hand.

She nods furiously, and he allows himself to be dragged all the way to the bridge. Which is located precisely where he'd expect it to be. "In here!"

Starscream hoists her up and tucks her into the crook of his arm. "Don't squirm," he advises her, before shooting the door's security panel to smithereens. Then he kicks the right side of double door until it swings open. "Knock, knock," he calls, training the gun mounted in his arm at the little weirdo's head as he walks in.

Scorponok turns to face him. He's alone on the bridge, and his face looks as haggard as it did on the video earlier, wan and bruised, with a new crack that bisects part of his visor. Starscream arches a brow as the ex-gladiator staggers forward -

And then keels over.

…Really?

Starscream drops the abomination so he can massage both temples. "Well. That was anticlimactic," he mutters.

"Papa! No!" Scorponok's experiment rushes over and shakes him, her buggy human eyes distraught as she cradles his helm. She looks up at Starscream as if he didn't just threaten to shoot her - well, if she's learned anything from Scorponok's handbook, she'd know not to take it personally - like she expects him to do something about it.

Then she flinches, and points.

Starscream raises his gun to the side without looking. An unpleasant sensation crawls along his plating, and he grits his teeth before he glances at the figure hovering between him and the bridge's two walls of windows, the point of a triangle in the overall insignia. He can see the outer curve of Neo-Cybertron from here but the air shimmers queasily around the rectangular, floating seat, with ripples like a curtain of panels that distort the view behind her. He can't actually see the thing on the seat itself - he can only infer she's there from context.

"The Quintesson, I presume. Charmed," Starscream says, sardonically. He takes a half step around, his optics fixed on the alien and every other sensor that feeds into his targeting HUD scanning the forward terminal, so he can identify the flight controls. Yes, he's vaguely familiar with the layout of these ships; no, he doesn't remember the details after how many millions of years of flying in better rigs.

A smooth, artificial voice emerges from the curtain of force fields. Something sibilant whines in his audials, just quiet enough that he can't make out words, like an extra layer of feedback. The Quintesson speaks unnervingly effortless Neo-Cybex. "I am Emissary Bellica. And you are Starscream."

Oh, fantastic. Wonderful. Scorponok's been talking. That, or these Quintessons are…familiar with modern Cybertronians, to some degree. Starscream's mouth curls. "Remind me why I'm not blasting you to the Pit, again?" he asks, idly.

Something rustles behind the curtain of shields. The hovering palanquin rotates as it drifts aimlessly across the bridge, like the equivalent of a mech pacing. When it starts to angle slightly toward _him_ , Starscream circles around. "We know you, Starscream. We can sense the potential inside you," the Emissary says, her unnatural voice thrumming respect.

Fake.

Starscream keeps circling until he has the entrance on his right and the windows behind him and the Emissary hovers in the center of the room. He tunes out the whimpering sounds from Scorponok's direction; the eyesore and his quote-unquote human daughter are irrelevant. The Quintesson seems fine with this state of affairs. The top and bottom of the palanquin rotate at different frequencies, one clockwise and the other counterclockwise, while the force fields remain weirdly still, apart from the occasional ripple of movement behind them. It looks like something completely removed from the rest of the world; crystalline and silvery blue, and too fluid. "Oh, this should be rich," he says, cracking his neck to the side and feigning boredom as he sits on the terminal and crosses his legs. The longer she talks, the longer he has to remember the safest way to crash land this thing.

If she feels like flattering him in the meanwhile, so much the better. It's not the first time some alien leader has tried to butter him up to get him to spare their life, and it probably won't be the last.

"Your ambition is admirable. It should have been nurtured. And yet somehow, no matter how hard you try, you perpetually find yourself coming in…second place. Ground down beneath inferior leaders. Undermined and scorned by others. Relegated to the sidelines, when you could be _so_ much more." A shimmering ripple. The light flickering weirdly off the shields. "We know. We have seen."

Starscream sets his jaw. "Go on," he says, arching a brow. This is all vague enough for the Quintesson to be cold reading him, still - and yet…

Another rippling pulse. Starscream rubs his right optic, trying to kill the odd afterimage that lingers in his HUD.

"We welcome ambition, Starscream," the Quintesson says, matter-of-factly. "To topple one weaker in mind and will than oneself, and supplant them with _your_ vision, is an honorable, encouraged method of advancement among us. And we recognize _talent_ such as your own _._ " A gesture behind the panels - when did the palanquin drift toward the front of the bridge again? - and Starscream's spark roils with something that might be pride. He _does_ still have his vanity, after all. Sometimes he misses the preening confidence of the good old days.

The Emissary's voice lowers. "This skirmish is but one insignificant facet of a much grander design, one that will decide the fate of more than just this galaxy. We will need people to rule it. It is almost time. What would you rather be? Second best? Stuck in the dull, unmemorable drudgery of deskwork, eclipsed by someone else's sun as she takes the glory for herself?" Another shift in the curtain, in a flurry of faceted light. The palanquin drifts alongside him, and one of the deep indigo limbs within gestures at Neo-Cybertron below. Starscream stares, fascinated. "Think. The world is passing you by, Starscream," she murmurs. Part reprimand, part offering.

And that's -

Tempting.

Starscream realizes he's leaning in, belatedly, when something _else_ shifts in the corner of his optic. He lets his mouth unfurl into a smile, resting the side of his face against curled fingers as he narrows his eyes. " _Now_ you're speaking my language. But what's really in it for me?" he says.

In the corner of his eye, the floor finishes folding back like origami, and a golden mech lays her hand flat on the paneled flooring.

Starscream leans the rest of the way over, back to the window, and allows himself to be reluctantly charmed as the Quintesson reaches out to touch his face. He can't see around her from here; only the shuttering, dizzying flutter of light - and a glimpse of something in the center.

Her voice drops to a croon. "Starscream, Chosen of the Galactic Accords. Lord Imperātor ad perpetuum." His guns are down ( _when did he put them down_ ), and it takes everything in his power to lock his hands around the edge of the terminal, tips digging into the underside as he forgets how to vent. "Uncontested rule of the Galaxias Kyklos, and the resources necessary to rule it with an iron fist, without fear of traducement."

Too many tendrils. Too many limbs, and at the center of it all, a mask that could be a face, except that the mouth is _so very hungry_. A gaping wound, more like a black hole than an intake. Shockwave's singularity was contained, controlled; this creature could suck the universe dry and never be sated. She pulls herself closer using him as a lever, more tentacles wrapping out and around to block out the world around him.

He knows that yawning void. That hunger. And for a moment, he craves it like nothing else. That thirst to be _more._ To fill it with everything they told him he couldn't have.

"Mm. Impressive. You _did_ do your research, didn't you," Starscream says. He raises a hand and smiles, simpering, as he twines a swaying coil of tentacle around his wrist.

He pauses. "But you're behind the times. Ruling disagreed with me."

Then he closes his hand in a fist, and yanks the Quintesson out of its shields. She's already halfway there, trying to suck him in. She did it to herself.

For a second, the Emissary catches halfway through the panels; space spasms lurchingly for a moment, but Starscream has her now. He shoves the bottom of the palanquin away with a foot and the seat contorts, one half wider than the top half as the whole construct wobbles. He rolls out of the way as the Quintesson writhes free, shrieking like the tear of metal run through an amplifier. "[What?!]" she shrieks, and it's Unicron's voice but _worse -_ Unicron never hated him, personally, with an ugly, sick loathing _\- like he's garbage, he's nothing_ \- "[ _You]_ -"

"Me!" Vivere says, ecstatic, as she steps up and punches a hand through the back of the Quintesson's mask.

Everything snaps back into abrupt focus. Starscream flinches, and sags, reprocessing as reality reasserts itself. The palanquin is still a physics-defying pile of broken geometry, but instead of a mass of tentacles encompassing his whole field of vision, the Emissary Bellica hangs limp in the air, drifting on a beam of light that slowly flickers out. Without the artificial, projected aura of forced awe and grandeur, the Quintesson is little more than a metal face, a bulging, metallic tumor of a mind, and protoform, the dark tentacles twitching. It's both smaller and larger than he thought, at the same time.

As he watches, Vivere steps back. Something glows a hideous, noxious green in her hand, like tainted energon; she inspects it for a moment, expression hard and remote, before closing her hand into a fist. It shatters in a sticky burst, shards of crystal and green liquid splattering on the floor. It's less like a spark being extinguished, and more like a pustule bursting.

"So. Just ripping the spark out does the trick? Crude," Starscream says. His vocalizer shakes more than he likes; he forcibly resets it. Something hot prickles under his armor - relief, and belated revulsion.

That was too close a call. Worse than embarrassing - worrying. He'd assumed Scorponok must have been idiot enough to let the Quintesson get close enough to fiddle with his brain like a mnemosurgeon.

But the Emissary's mesmerism caught Starscream from across the room. Tricks of the light, and that sibilant note in her words, on too low a register for him to realize it was a threat until it was too late. _He'd had his guns down_ , and no memory of transforming them away.

Starscream is one of the most paranoid people on Neo-Cybertron. He knows this for a fact. He expected her to try to pull something, and he still lost his train of thought until she was far too close.

This is bad. And that might be an _understatement_. He rakes the tips of his fingers along the back of his neck, scratching a psychosomatic itch.

"There's a trick to it," Vivere says, flashing a grin. "They've never understood their own sparks. Just think they're inconvenient glowing batteries." Humming, she wipes the slime off her hand on the terminal, where it starts to sizzle.

"Strange times we live in." Starscream shakes his head, his tanks flipping nauseatingly as he recovers. Then he pulls a face. "Eugh. Did I really just turn down the galaxy? Maybe I really am coming down with something."

Vivere shoots him a wry look. He's not buying the pseudo-mythical thing, really, but there's something arresting about the depth in her optics. It's not the pompous, self-righteous look that elderly mechs tend to get. "She was lying. You did very well."

Starscream shifts uncomfortably and looks away. "Well, _obviously_ ," he says, mostly to the far wall.

He blinks, however, when he realizes something else is off about the room.

Scorponok's gone.

He turns his back on the body for five slagging seconds, and it vanishes into the abyss. Starscream stalks over to the corner, ignoring the palanquin, and scans the rest of the room with rising impatience. "Oh no. Where did that little -"

"Little what?" Vivere repeats, when he cuts off in a fit of temper.

"Scorponok's tiny bundle of abominable joy!" he snaps, crossing the room to yank the door open. Nothing in the corridor. How the slag -

Whatever. If Scorponok's not here and he can't be bothered to _stay awake_ for Starscream's dramatic entrance and a final confrontation, he doesn't get to complain when Starscream lands the Worldsweeper in a completely normal, not-crashed fashion. He grumbles as he stalks back to the terminal and starts keying in coordinates, so the _Prototype_ eases out of orbit and starts to descend straight down through the atmosphere. "Stronger than she looked, apparently. Where did she lug him off to…"

He's talking to himself. Vivere blinks, craning her head around with interest as she looks over the room. "She? Someone else was here?" A pause. "Fascinating!" Tracing his steps, she stares at the floor where Scorponok was lying, then darts over to the door and slips out into the hallway.

He's not responsible for an oblivious Muse's midlife crisis, either. Starscream has better things to do. He flicks on the intercom system with a sour expression and doesn't bother trying to modulate the irritable screech in his voice as he addresses the Worldsweeper fleet at large. "Attention, you _idiots_. This is Starscream. Stand down, or suffer the consequences. Your tentacled menace is dead and your leader is down, so you're out of excuses - and I'm not nearly as nice as Speaker Windvoice."

After a moment's thought, he adds, "Or go ahead. Make my day." Some target practice might lighten his mood.

A crystalline crash. Behind him.

Starscream homes in on the source before he finishes whipping around on his heel, teeth bared in a growing sneer as he levels the gun on a stranger. Someone Cybertronian, but not notorious enough for him to identify on sight - red and yellow, no insignia to be seen. One optic's smashed in, while the other is a feverish green. He staggers through the remains of the palanquin, one leg weirdly foreshortened for a moment before he clears it. Every step seems to take him immense effort.

He has no sympathy. Starscream keeps the gun active, unimpressed, as the mech half-collapses on the side of the captain's chair. "Come on, this is going to be too easy," he complains, with a gusty sigh.

Slowly, the mech raises his head again. And -

Blue.

The shattered optic lens is a pale blue.

Why would the other be _green -_

The mech lunges.

Starscream fires, of course. The first few shots are to stun, and catch the mech square in the chest. But he charges on, ignoring the painful charge, and Starscream turns up the power on his gun and aims for the head -

Then the mech slams into him. Starscream's next shot blows a hole through his shoulder rather than his helm; they tumble backward over the terminal onto the metal plane beneath the windows. Snarling, Starscream draws his energy sword out of its socket, powers it on, and stabs it into the mech's stomach.

The aft spits energon all over Starscream's face. "Eagh!" Starscream yells. He twists the blade deeper out of spite, but the mech ignores the pain and the severe internal damage _again_ to pin Starscream's left arm beneath his weight.

"[That. Was. A. Mistake,]" the mech says, in a ragged approximation of the Emissary's voice. "[Making help [me] me [use this] stop [inferior body!]"

Then, ignoring the burning sword through his abdomen, he backhands Starscream across the face and hauls him up by his collar with unnatural strength. He slams Starscream down headfirst into the terminal. The bridge's alarm sirens begin to whoop as Starscream jams his free arm alongside the energy blade and fires straight into the open wound.

The mech locks his arms around Starscream's back, gouging his fingers deep into the wiring between Starscream's wings.

Then, with an energon-stained grin, he throws both of them out the window.

This is really not his day.

-

IH: Did you seriously just fall out of a window?  
IH: We can hear you yelling.  
IH: Starscream, you can fly.  
IH: Starscream?


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you hit the music note, feel free to follow the link for music.

\---

_the rosyfingered moon_

_surpasses all the stars. And her light_

_stretches over salt sea_

_equally, and flowerdeep fields._

\- Sappho of Tempo, <<[fragments](http://stoneandbloodandwater.tumblr.com/post/175660247094/violentwavesofemotion-sappho-tr-by-anne)>>

\---

Velocity keeps her appraised of the status of the hospital as Scorponok's raid continues. It's only been a few hours, but casualties are stacking up. In Starscream's absence, Transmutate forwards a message from Flatline, who doesn't seem to expect any real help but wants to voice his concerns to _someone_. Censere's shields are patchier, and Flatline's clinics less centralized. After consulting with Velocity and Ratchet Windvoice sends a comm back letting Flatline know that paramedics and nurses are being redirected to his main clinic to assist. She asks, more carefully, if it would disrupt treatment too much if she visited herself to see how everyone was holding up. Flatline's response to her is noticeably less colorful, and marked by something like reluctant gratitude, but he's very sure that he doesn't want her and her ever-growing entourage of bodyguards underfoot until people stop springing new leaks in his emergency ward, which was the same response she got from Ratchet. Chromia also has very strong words about Windvoice leaving the safety of Metroplex.

Someone presses a cube or three of energon into her hands in between the waves of people who come to her, seeking news and reassurance. There is, ironically, a ragtag group of constituents from Censere who demand to know whether they're _all_ in danger of spontaneously vaporizing the second they leave a bar like 'that one shrimpy guy a few days ago'; Windvoice is relieved to be able to give them the good news that Tailgate is probably not dead and should be restored shortly, and that Wheeljack continued working to resolve the core issue even in her absence. Others, including a small huddle of Camiens, want to know exactly what Caminus's arrival means for existing trade agreements and diplomatic relations, and how they intend to decide physical boundaries now that they're sharing a planet.

Good questions. In her cell, Windvoice accepted that bringing Caminus home would have world-shaking consequences – but she chose to do it all the same. She needs to get her people and the Matriarch and actual members of the Forgefire Parliament together to reopen talks, hash things out, and address the Mistress of Flame's recent policies, before someone stumbles wings-first into a diplomatic incident. That, the theological implications of the Muse of Life crushing the Matrix, those who still view Windvoice as a blasphemer and will most likely decry her decision to unilaterally move Caminus, without consulting the Camien people themselves…

It's not going to be pretty or easy. And Windvoice is troubled by what kind of precedent it sets if the Matriarch of Incaendium starts to treat Windvoice as some kind of divinely appointed figure to salve Neo-Cybertronian/Camien relations. That wouldn't solve the underlying issues – just bury it all beneath the surface, to rust under their feet until it can't support their weight.

All the old Primes of Cybertron could arrive tomorrow and declare a new covenant, and Windvoice thinks she'd have to plant her feet, and tell them _no_. Someone has to.

So. At least no one can accuse her of desecrating Solus's Forge, anymore. The blasphemy is probably here to stay. She cares too much about Neo-Cybertron, and her people, and Metroplex and Vigilem and Caminus, to keep blind faith in Primes. She's not letting them make her a Prime or a blessed equivalent. She was never pious enough to qualify for the Way of Flame, anyway. She's herself: nothing more, nothing less.

She feels like she needs to reaffirm that. Onyx Prime's parting words disturbed her. If Onyx wants to frame her like a Prime – like she's _Solus_ – she has to assume he's motivated by some kind of ill intent. She couldn't consult Starscream on that before he and Ironhide left, but he's probably going to have some strong words about her PR image when they finally catch a break.

Still. The only greyed frame in the morgue so far is the dead guard, designation Blowback, from before the attack even began. Some of the casualties are in critical condition, most of them fliers who engaged directly with the raiders, but no one's dead yet. If Scorponok intends to transplant Decepticon sparks as part of his strange experiment, it would make sense if he's given orders not to shoot to kill.

But people are tense. Scared. After a year of relative stability and recovery, coming under fire again - even with shields holding overhead - saps morale. She can't imagine the situation's much better in Censere, much less Caminus.

 Which mostly involves collaring Lightbright and Shockwave, and praying to Solus that he's not in a universe-devouring-black-hole sort of mood. Hopefully he got that out of his system.

"You specialize in energy sciences," Windvoice says, carefully, when she tracks Shockwave to an open balcony, where he's surveying the battle-in-progress between Onyx's winking ship and the Worldsweeper _Dysfunctional._

"I have been known to dabble," Shockwave agrees, without breaking eye contact – as it were – with the optic craft.

From the research Windvoice has done, that's an understatement. Shockwave, in addition to being a senator, was at the forefront of prewar-era Cybertron's efforts to understand the energon shortage, and funded and participated in several research initiatives dedicated to maximizing energy efficiency in Iacon's infrastructure before the Institute forcibly rewired his mind – and priorities - through shadowplay.

Then he seeded energy ores capable of altering existence itself throughout the galaxy to try to convert the universe itself into an energy source for Cybertron.

She just needs to - er - keep him focused. Normally this would be Wheeljack's area of expertise, but they've reached a critical phase in their work in the root system and he can't be spared. Not even to corral Shockwave's…enthusiasm.

Windvoice's smile might be a little weird. But Shockwave falls in step with her amenably as she makes a dash for the nearest set of stairs. "Excellent. Most of the apprentices are busy maintaining Metroplex's core. I'm hoping that we can access the western energy shield generator, and -"

"- collapse the shields into a concentrated energy beam with which to strike down Scorponok," Shockwave finishes for her, steepling his fingers. His optic is already distant, absorbed in calculation.

Lightbright trips over her own feet and narrowly avoids launching herself down the stairs face first. Chromia stares at Shockwave in open-mouthed horror. Silverbolt looks like he's resigned to the inevitable. If Fireflight were here, and not in the middle of having his arm reconstructed from scratch, she can only imagine his response.

"Wha– no! No!" Windvoice exclaims, wishing that the Lathe didn't automatically start to calculate just what it would take to achieve that kind of alteration.

He pauses to puzzle over her exclamation. It takes him _entirely too long_ to realize the issue with what he just said. "Forgive me. I'm used to anticipating the requests of more bellicose individuals."

Never before has she felt a deeper and more desperate appreciation for everything Wheeljack does for them. She owes him something either very beautiful or very expensive; now that Caminus is next door, she can commission something as soon as people stop shooting at them. Ignoring the cold condensation that spontaneously broke out over her plating, Windvoice shakes her head. "Let's - just try to extend Metroplex's energy shields further over Censere, without sacrificing integrity or increasing the strain on Metroplex too much."

"Ah. Simple enough." Then Shockwave falls into silence, his hands folded behind his back as he follows her at a leisurely pace.

"You had an entire war of this?" Lightbright asks Silverbolt, in an incredulous undertone.

"This is nothing," Silverbolt says. "Slag, this is an improvement."

-

Shockwave seems perfectly composed and reasonable as he lays out his suggested plan of action. The shield generator is the size of a small building, and clearly foreign to Metroplex's frame, and a lot of this will involve fiddling with the shields' parameters without direct feedback from Metroplex's sensors.

Everything in the shield generator is built to meld with a Titan's antique systems, so it's not completely unfamiliar.

Windvoice sighs deeply as Shockwave and Lightbright start to strip off the outer panels of the wall. She directs the Lathe to analyze every potential outcome of the changes they're making. With any luck, she can catch any alterations that might lead to unexpected consequences before Shockwave goes completely off the rails. With Chromia and Silverbolt to stand guard, she takes in the pink-lined framework on her visor and obeys the intuition the Lathe lends her. She boosts herself up to follow Lightbright in crawling through the shield generator's narrow, twisty maintenance tunnels.

Before she gets a foot on the ladder, however, someone scrapes their foot on the ground behind her. "Need a hand?" Jazz asks, as he leans on the wall beside her.

Windvoice checks over her shoulder; neither Chromia nor Silverbolt seemed to notice Jazz's appearance, and Starscream's not here to scream sabotage.

And considering who they're dealing with? Windvoice checks over her other shoulder and bites her lip. Oblivious, or uncaring, Shockwave plugs into the control panel.

She turns back to Jazz. _"Please._ "

"Heh. I know my way around a shield generator. I can disassemble one in five minutes flat," Jazz says, cheerfully. His field doesn't quite jive with his voice. Then he taps the side of his visor, face quirked in a wry smile. "And I can recognize the subtler ways that people can meddle with one, if you catch my drift."

Better and better. Windvoice smiles back, though it's probably still a little lopsided. "Right. I have some ideas of my own. Hopefully that will keep us on track," she says, climbing into the generator. The Lathe helpfully traces an arrow along the floor that points her on her way.

Like her and Lightbright, Jazz can fit into the tighter spaces; he easily swings up into the maintenance tunnel after her. "Sounds like a plan."

Windvoice double checks something. "Metroplex? These are later additions, right?" she calls, pitching her voice to carry. The nearest sensor is in the ground just outside the shield generator building.

[Affirmative,] Metroplex agrees.

His answer comes from outside, too - she may need to retrace her steps to make sure she's in audial range if Metroplex needs to say something. "I see. Let me know if anything hurts," she says, before adding, "Let's take a look."

She drops down into an inner room with space to stand. The Lathe rapidly churns out a comparison of Shockwave's suggested changes with the configuration that already exists, outlining the heavy machinery around them in fuchsia. Her hand opens and closes, reaching for the grip of the absent Forge hammer. She left it outside with Chromia for safekeeping; there's not exactly room to swing it in here.

Moreover, Windvoice is still…not entirely sure how the Forge works. She doubts anyone short of Solus herself knew how to utilize it and the Creation Lathe in conjunction - and then Solus transferred her spark's energy into the hammer itself. That must have transmuted the Forge somehow, but beyond that and its role in reaching out to Unicron, Windvoice hasn't had a chance to learn how it works _now_ compared to the historical accounts. It all seemed so clear before, when all of her will was bent to the purpose of saving - resurrecting - Cybertron.

How much of Solus is left in there?

Jazz volunteers to wriggle into a niche deep inside the crystalline lattice that takes up half the room. It's a tight space, but Windvoice could certainly reach it. Apparently, her EM field's less subtle about her concern for Metroplex than she thought. "Up there? No worries. I got it," Jazz reassures her, shooting a thumbs up. "I'm more flexible than I look."

With a faint pang of relief, Windvoice pries open a terminal on the ground level instead to rewire the controls with flying fingers. "Thank you."

"No problem." Jazz's voice echoes oddly in the thin space between panels of crystal. "I think we owe you a solid or two."

She's not sure she's meant to hear that last part - he murmurs it to himself. Windvoice hesitates, her hands slowing imperceptibly. But the danger to Censere with its patchwork shields spurs her back into motion. She has a duty. Relacing the wires goes faster and fast; she finds her fingers moving before the Lathe's lines of light as she learns the trick of it. Her processor hums with activity in a way that eases the faint tension headache from the muffled explosions overhead; she leans into the sound, humming along as she works.

She settles on calling Orion by his chosen name for courtesy's sake, until she can confirm whether he chooses to set aside the title of Prime or not. "I don't hold you responsible for my grievances with Optimus. You've been nothing but respectful since you arrived, and kind," she says, at last. It's the truth. Of those Orion brought with him as an escort, no one made Orion act the way he did except Orion himself. Even Aileron didn't play much of a part in the Council politics before Onyx's interruption, and never approached Windvoice directly. Orion turned to the Mistress of Flame before he consulted his own escort. The note of quiet remorse in Jazz's unobtrusive field is undeserved.

She hasn't forgotten how he handled the situation with Starscream. It takes a strong will and a clear head to be as objective as Jazz had to be, to look past the automatic assumptions he must've had upon seeing Starscream and Megatron together, and to approach her before Orion. She only caught glimpses of how Orion's presence affected Wheeljack this past week – the unsubtle pressure, the rude probes for intel that Orion simply assumed Wheeljack would provide as an Autobot, the quiet disapproval – but she can't imagine serving under Orion on Earth full time has been any easier, or less stressful to weather.

Maybe it worked in war. But not now.

A huff of laughter. "Still feels like too little, too late. Always," Jazz replies. He tries to sound light, like it's a humorous exaggeration – but it's not. "Don't mind me. I need a good instrumental to clear my head."

For a moment, she considers humming a little louder, but she suspects that's not quite what Jazz has in mind. There are distinct notes, if she concentrates, like the chime of bells – but she doesn't have any instruments to recreate it properly. And all her saved music files from Caminus are back home, or in her memory banks.

"Do you know what Optimus wanted to achieve with all this?" she asks instead. "I'm sorry if I overstep. I'm still getting used to understanding Primes as…people, I suppose."

This time, Jazz's amusement sounds genuine as he laughs. He disentangles himself from the crystal arrays, a roguish smile on his face as he hops down. "Really? You're already doing a pretty good job of it," he says, stretching his hands behind his back with alarming flexibility. "I've been getting my finger on the pulse here, you know? Speaker Windvoice, who politely doesn't take slag from anyone, and has Starscream loyal for the first time ever, and invites Titans over for dinner, and cares so damn much that random Decepticons in the street get all bashful when they admit she's _probably_ not corrupt." He rests a hip on the corner of a covered terminal, one leg swinging as he folds his arms and grins. "That was kind of a big deal from them, back in the day. High praise."

Forget bashful Decepticons; Windvoice can feel her whole face burning. Her vocalizer squawks. "Who -"

He flaps a hand at her – _details, details._ "But you want to know about Optimus?" Jazz sighs, sober again. "Look. A friend said someone told Optimus he was a space messiah one too many times…and he started to believe it. I dunno when it really started to change - if it's just been these past few years, or if it's just taken the war ending for us to see what was there all along. Maybe Prime doesn't know himself. We've all been reacting more than we've been processing." As Windvoice finishes the last of her adjustments, barely seeing the Lathe's light, Jazz kicks his feet out and stares at the mass of machinery over their heads. He drops his voice to a murmur again. "Between you 'n me, I don't think Jetfire's going back to Earth. S'why he volunteered to come along in the first place - to see if Wheeljack or Ratchet might have space for him on a project, or something up on Luna-1. He's a good mech, but he's at his limit, I think."

Windvoice leans back and lets the Lathe assess the progress they've made in different sectors of the generator. With these adjustments…she needs to go up. "And you?" she asks, quietly, as she hauls herself back into the maintenance shaft.

Jazz rubs the back of his helm. He looks tired. "I'm not sure where I'm at. Not a good place for someone like me to be." Another dry chuckle. "They don't want us there on Earth. Can't blame them. We're not that great to have around. Even when we're helping, we're the problem."

Windvoice thinks that's the first time anyone's said, up front, without hedging, that Earth's people want to be left alone. Jazz sounds like he's worn himself down to bare struts trying to keep his spirits up there.

"So come home," she says, reaching back to give him a hand.

Jazz stares at her hand for a long second, like he's never seen fingers before in his life. Then, abruptly, he starts to laugh so hard he curls over, his field a flood of wild, surprised relief. "You make it sound so simple," he explains, accepting her outstretched hand to boost himself up. "Sorry. Feels like it's been too long since things were simple."

Windvoice would shrug, but her arms are occupied with climbing the ladder up to the roof. A scuffle in the junction to their right alerts her before Lightbright pops her head out of the cross tunnel, her disgruntled white face smudged with oil. "Things are rarely simple. But if you're not happy, something needs to change," she replies.

"Yeah. Maybe," Jazz says.

Then he lapses into a reflective silence – either because of Lightbright joining them in the column, or because he needs time to think. Windvoice feels a mild twinge of guilt at the idea of persuading Orion's people to leave Earth without discussing it up front with him.

But they _should_ be free to leave, if they chose. There should always be a choice.

When they reach the underside of the generator roof, Windvoice undoes the magnetic locks and pushes the panel outward so the three of them can spill out of the cramped maintenance tunnel. They'll need to alter the alignment of the domed generator units up here, but once that's done – if Shockwave's modifications work as intended – the forcefield's range should extend over another quarter of Censere. Through the transparent facets of the shield, Windvoice counts only a few rogue fliers, marked by the red flare of cannons and guns in the sky. The sun's back for the first time in days – Onyx's optic craft has veered away from Metroplex's airspace, duking it out with a Worldsweeper far to the west. "Everything alright?" Windvoice calls over the sound of the fight in the distance.

Metroplex responds, his voice emitting from a speaker along the wall between him and Censere. [You are here.][We are not alone.] he says, firmly, with the rumble in his voice that makes her spark tug. She smiles, and then adjusts the Lathe so that it projects the necessary adjustments for everyone to see.

"Elita-1's confirmed that  _Justice of Tarn_ and  _Harbinger_ are downed outside Caminus's city limits; she's taking any survivors into custody." Lightbright says, relaying from her comms as the three of them each pick a generator unit and set to work. " _Agitation Train –_ oof! - pulled back from Metroplex, but they're wobbling badly as they head south. Ships are ready to intercept if it loses altitude."

Windvoice checks her own comms inbox – anything that's been in there longer than a day is thoroughly buried by now – and her memory. She snaps the domed unit into its new configuration, and feels her audial sensors _pop_ with a faint twinge of old pain as the atmospheric pressure shifts. "Which means _Dysfunctional_ is still engaged with Onyx's craft. At least they're letting daylight through now. And the flagship…"

She strains her sensors, but between the distortion of the forcefield and the smoke trails streaking across the sky, the final Worldsweeper is out of sight.

Then, with a jolt, Metroplex's western shield flickers - and extends in a ripping arc. The angle of the new curve spread over more than three quarters of Censere, high enough that it doesn't interfere with the existing shields.

She needs to consult Metroplex's processor to monitor overall power consumption – but they hold. The Lathe's pale pink lines are harder to discern against the open sky, but the readout in her holovisor doesn't list any thinned facets or abnormal fluctuations. Even if the fight weren't winding down – hopefully – Windvoice feels better about the state of Censere's defenses.

This doesn't look like a giant death laser at all; there may be hope for Shockwave yet.

So why -

"Any word from Starscream and Ironhide?" she calls to Chromia, over the side of the building. She shades her optics to peer at the sky, feeling oddly unsettled. Something's…

Down on the ground, Chromia cups her hands around her mouth. They've attracted a small crowd of bystanders; some of them wave when they spy her on the rooftop. Shockwave hasn't even looked up from his work. "Ironhide confirmed that they were engaged with the crew, and Starscream hailed everyone a couple minutes ago, ordering them to stand down," Chromia shouts back. "They didn't listen, amazingly enough. Other than that, nothing."

[Falling,] Metroplex says, distantly. His speaker is quiet enough from here that Windvoice half-thinks she imagined it. [falling]

But no.

Something in her chest slows to a cold, shuddering stop as she stares at the sky. Her feet start to move before her processor catches up. What _is_ that? A black speck against the clouds -

"What's wrong?" Lightbright asks, brushing Windvoice's shoulder with her fingers as Windvoice jogs past her, to the edge of the roof. Jazz is following her gaze from his corner of the roof, his crooked smile slowly fading. His optics are probably better than hers.

"Someone's falling," Windvoice says.

And then the world turns inside out.

\---

_You're only serving lies_

_You've got something to hide_

[We gon' burn the whole house down.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnyLfqpyi94)

\- ♪

\---

For the most part, it's simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

Tricky. There are many places to be in the universe at any given moment.

In the end, all that really delays them is Brainstorm's insistence that the quantum cage be a distinct shade of lilac that complements the pearl grey of the quantum frequency modulators. His sense of the aesthetic, questionable though it may be, cannot be denied. Neither can his genius. He and Wheeljack think along similar lines - adapting, converting, and expanding upon the basics set forth by others to invent something entirely new - but Wheeljack knows what restraint means. Brainstorm has few such qualms, particularly where the laws of physics are concerned, with growing experience in time, space, and the delicate point where the two intersect. Nautica's experience rests largely on her theoretical studies; yet her depth of genius could surpass them all, given the opportunity. The _Lost Light_ jumpstarted her practical application of said genius in intriguing ways.

Whirl is busy playing an inane alien game with a holomatter avatar, whose seventy-five-game winning streak of rock-paper-scissors ended when Whirl began contorting his claws together to form rude gestures, and the avatar responded enthusiastically in kind. Beside him, Cyclonus remains in the same position he's held for the past few days, his ancient discipline betrayed only by the way his hands tremble as Wheeljack confirms the final systems checks are complete.

Cyclonus is another intriguing piece. The children of Metroplex are ever a rare sight, but certainly built to last.

"It's time to throw the switch!" Brainstorm announces, swinging dangerously from the handle as he impatiently fidgets, waiting for Nautica and Wheeljack to commune with the quantum projection of Tailgate through elaborate charades. The lack of auditory feedback could most likely have been fine-tuned, but there were other concerns. Finally, Tailgate positions himself within the cage; the moment his arms and legs are inside, Brainstorm yanks the switch with a cackle.

"Aaand the second switch!" Nautica calls, over the burgeoning crackle of green electricity rolling along the outside of the thin metal links.

With a _whump_ and a cloud of billowing, thick pink smoke that curls through the air, Tailgate collapses into a solid state. Whirl rests a claw on Cyclonus's shoulder - something to watch carefully.

The minibot resets his visor, glancing around as he takes in the machinery that was no doubt invisible from the far side of the universal divide. Then, carefully, he steps out of the cage. "Is this real?" he asks.

A moment's hesitation - then a scrape as Cyclonus lurches forward. He's only on his feet for a moment before he falls to his knees again, sweeping Tailgate into an embrace. "Do not ever do that again," he says, voice tight, into the smaller bot's shoulder.

"I don't even know how I did it in the first place!" Tailgate complains, hugging Cyclonus back. Then his visor lands on Whirl, lurking by Cyclonus's sword. "Hey! Whirl, I saw you! You had -"

The chatter quickly becomes inane, and easy to tune out. Cyclonus rests his forehead against Tailgate's, but the babble only falters for a moment before resuming.

"Are we bringing Megatron through?" Nautica asks Wheeljack, in an undertone. The question of the hour; it's had them arguing in circles for days, really, like cybirds with their heads cut off. The phantom of Megatron is currently located deeper within the root system, busying himself with some preoccupation in the other universal strand, but that can be quickly rectified.

Wheeljack massages his optics with his whole hand. Like Brainstorm and Nautica, he has poured himself into this work for the past week; unlike them, his responsibilities and anxieties elsewhere trouble his recharge hours. A pity; he's made himself too integral to Starscream's mental state to remain. "Let's hold off. Now that we've got a handle on the resonance, whatever's going on upstairs takes precedent. And we know that we  _can_ bring him back, if we need to. Still wonder if it's a good idea."

Nautica fulminates for a moment. She sets up a small handheld fan and holds it out to blow the pillowy clouds of pink smoke down the tunnel when it starts to pile up on the floor. "I heard what happened on the other side second-hand," she says, with a twist of a smile. "Brainstorm tried to use Censere's device to send them home, but since the geobomb had already bounced us to the Functionist Universe, it…wasn't home. The Functionist Council's Evaluator tried to vivisect them and plant something in their eyes, the Inquisitor had a whole hoard of mnemosurgeons that wanted to drill holes in their helms. They kept demanding to know where Rung was, for some reason; it's so lucky that Rung didn't go along, or who knows what might've happened to him." The thought seems to sober her further still, but she presses on. "They turned their moon into a harvester unit and started recycling people en masse…It's just – It's one thing to hear about your war, and realize how many people it killed. It's another to hear that in another time and place, the Functionist Council culled the population down to something even  _lower_  – coldly, rationally deciding who deserved to live and who died - and claimed it was _right_. Like it was all part of a plan, and not just horrible."

Wheeljack arches a brow, scribbling one last note on his datapad before stowing his scanner away in subspace. "So you think we should wish Megatron on whatever's left?"

Nautica is very quiet for moment. Her perspective is a fascinating one, though ultimately irrelevant. "You didn't know him. Those last few months…" She breaks off in the middle of tapping the shutdown sequence into the control terminal. Her hands slow as her momentum falters. "Well. I suppose Velocity and I never knew him before, either. Millions of years of war and genocide, against a few months of pacifism and reason…I can see why it doesn't hold up. Maybe he's done better over there, or maybe it's the same thing all over again. I don't know." She shakes her head. "Rodimus was so betrayed, when he realized Megatron was left behind. Or chose to stay. I don't think I've ever seen him so upset. Ultra Magnus - he hasn't been the same."

Wheeljack rests some of his weight on the edge of the terminal - another sign he's exhausted his resources. Nautica's been the only one really upholding standards of proper lab safety as his and Brainstorm's approach grew more slapdash. "I'm not saying people can't change. It's just – messy." He rubs the back of his head with a self-conscious laugh. "I mean, look who I'm with. I'm hardly one to talk. I want to believe we're all trying, that things'll keep getting better. But -" He breaks off. "Well. There's a lot of personal baggage there, too."

"And as fun as all this is?" Whirl interrupts, his voice rising over Tailgate's vocal gesticulations and Nautica and Wheeljack's conversation. "We've got company."

Two people saunter around the curve of the tunnel. Both resemble Cybertronians, but their modifications mark them for what they are. Both bear the golden gear on their chests; the one on the right wears a maskplate, but they both look amused by the sight of Whirl levelling weapons at them. Nautica brandishes her formidable wrench, and starts to say, "Stand still, face front, hands on heads -" in the manner of someone whose experience with standoffs is drawn mainly from literature, and who has been waiting to use that particular quote successfully for some time.

Ever the peacekeeper, Wheeljack attempts to intercede. "Hey, hang on fellas. There's some volatile equipment down here. Can we help you with something?" he asks, stepping forward. Cyclonus pushes Tailgate behind him, clenching his fist as he grasps over his shoulder for a sword several paces out of reach.

"It's time. We can't risk missing the deadline," Ancilla says. Despite his amusement, his expression is taut, his cool red optics narrow, as though he anticipates resistance. Upstart.

Whirl raises a foot and slams it backwards, kicking the sword in Cyclonus's waiting hands.

"Tick tock," Ferrum says, tapping the side of his head.

Ah, yes.

Time to upend the playing field.

Killmaster rises from his crouch at last, and draws his wand.

As soon as he removes it from its resting position, the charge it has stored this past week lances out in a blaze of bright green light.

(And the fools never realize what hit them.)

When the light clears and the universe shutters into its new configuration - strands merged, mass accounted for, pieces scattered in their new positions on the board - Killmaster steps out of the circle of scorch marks, impassive.

A pity. He would have liked to taunt his nemesis on his recent softness. But there will be time enough for that, before the end of all things.

"All taken care of?" Ferrum sounds cheerful through his mask. Like a rabid sparkeater straining at the end of his leash, teeth bared in a smile.

Killmaster brushes between them. Like so many others, they are irrelevant. If they've risen above their station, complacent, they will learn better.

"Enough talk," he says, sinking the wand into its proper place, like a needle under his spark. The world begins to ripple as they step into compressed space, leaving an empty room in their wake. "I have business with the Grand Architect."

\---

_We gon' burn the whole house down_

\---

It's hard, hauling her dad unconscious through the ship.

It's hard, and someone is following them.

"Hello? Is someone there?" the stranger calls. Sari stuffs her hand into her mouth to stifle the sound of her breathing as light, dancing footsteps pass overhead. Papa always says that breathing is a redundant function and that she can operate just fine even in a vacuum, but it keeps happening anyway. She'll start breathing without conscious thought, and then – like right now – when she pushes herself too much she's starts to wheeze 'cause the atmosphere on board gets too thin, and if she stops for longer than an hour she gets dizzy. It's _super_ annoying.

Once she thinks the person has wandered off down the hall, Sari swallows a gasp and grabs Scorponok's hand again. His head rocks to the side as she tugs on his lifeless arm; her feet skid a little on the shallow incline of the floor before she gains traction. The tunnels under the floor are the only ones big enough for him to fit. If they were in the vents, she'd know where all the best hiding spots are. The burrows are for lying in wait and setting traps, not for hiding.

Sari manages to drag him another few meters, as quietly as she can, when the voice abruptly starts again, directly overhead. Sari fumbles and drops Scorponok's hand with a startlingly loud clank and winces, covering her head instinctively as the stranger speaks. "I'm not used to not realizing, you see. Sensing sparks is rather my specialty. But you, my dear - you're something entirely new!"

She talks funny – like she's singing, even when she's just speaking normally. It's a nice voice. Sari understands even when the words don't quite match the ones from Neo-Cybex. Every so often the musical sound will shift, like she's trying to find the right note. Or like she's used to someone else singing at the same time, so she has to fill in the gaps.

Breath caught in her throat, Sari carefully starts moving again. Scorponok scrapes along the ground a little, and the heavy, grinding screech is a dead giveaway.

But she can't help it! If she were bigger, maybe she could pick up more of his weight. But Papa always said she wasn't ready for her bigger body yet; he gave her datapads with drawing programs so she could doodle what she wanted to look like, but he'd always said 'later' or 'not now' or 'we'll see' when she showed him all her best, most awesome and pretty blueprints.

One day, she'll be tall, and strong. Sari thinks she almost has it nailed down.

But first, she has to get Papa away from all the enemies and strangers on board. He'll wake up soon; he has to. She thought maybe she could take him to hide in her big brother's room – but they sent him away a while ago, and he hasn't been back since.

 "I can almost grasp who you used to be," the voice says. Sari flinches and crouches reflexively, glancing anxiously up at the underside of the floor. But they're not under a grate. The footsteps are so light she almost missed them coming down the hall again, just a few paces out of sync with them. "She wasn't very happy, was she? The Creation Matrix was not meant to be used like that, and so many seem to have suffered for it. Forced into frames and names that could never suit. The ones forced into war from the moment they woke – triply so."

Argh. How is she supposed to lose this lady? Sari grits her teeth and waits _again_ until the stranger's feet skim past them and move ahead down the hallway. If she could pop up out of the floor and catch the stranger off guard, she would. But she tried that earlier, and not only did the mech shrug off her most awesome sneak attack moves, he turned out to be one of the scary ones. One of the Decepticons that Papa said she was supposed to avoid at all costs, because he would squash her like a bug.

Whatever. Filled with determination, Sari hoists Scorponok's hand and heaves with her whole body. If she can just make it to the junction up ahead, there's a tunnel that leads down to the emergency escape pod. He made sure she knew how to find it, leading her down through the bowels of the ship in his scorpion mode so that she'd know the way through the maze.

"But now, you have been reforged," the voice murmurs. The sound's too low and distant for Sari to pinpoint where it's coming from, so she grits her teeth and tugs harder, to speed things up. "And alas, my dear, while I may not be able to sense you anymore, I _can_ tell that dear Scorponok is unconscious, but still somehow moving."

Wait, that's –

Sari freezes.

Then she looks up.

The stranger smiles down fondly, the corners of her golden eyes crinkled warmly as she bends with her hands on her knees to peer down through the open grate.

"…Oh," Sari says, after a pause. Instead of dropping it, she clutches Scorponok's hand tighter, hugging it to her chest. It's not like she could've left him behind. He told her before that in an emergency her orders are to get to the escape pod, with or without him and Flame – but Sari had always nodded along, and totally disregarded that 'without' part. If things were that bad, she would help fight, obviously.

Now…

The stranger crouches, one arm folded over her knees as she reaches down to touch Sari's upturned face. "Look at you. You're a _wonder_."

Then the whole world flashes green. The afterimage of the ship sticks to Sari's eyes for a moment, a blurry, bright smear of the grate, the ceiling, the stranger, and the dizzy swirl of everything spinning –

Then it all slams to a stop.

Her hand smacks against her chest, because Papa is gone. Sari freezes, still crouched, and absorbs the sudden change in her surroundings.

She's on the edge of a street, the walls yellow and plain. Light posts arch overhead, along the overhang of a building that casts a shadow over this section of road, and beyond the edge of it Sari can make out more tall, golden buildings that stretch into the dark night sky. The road is silent and empty and still, but the lights fill every nook and cranny. Even though it's night, the city glows under the stars.

She's never seen anything like it. For a second she just stares up at the sky, mouth open; she stumbles as she gets up and turns in a circle, amazed.

_Pok._

A pop like a small handheld grenade launcher firing makes Sari jump. She squints in the direction the sound came from, and sees a cluster of mechs gathered at the edge of a brightly lit underpass down the highway. She flattens back against the wall and self-consciously checks her face – but her mask wouldn't stay on straight after that big dumb dummy pulled it off. It must have fallen off at some point while she was crawling around in the tunnels –

And it hits her, abruptly, that Scorponok isn't here. Sari whips her head around, finials arched as far as they can go as she frantically scans the ground, but she's alone. The only person on this stretch of road for kilometers in either direction is…her. A circle of dark scorch marks mars the yellow surface of the street where she was first crouched, but everything else is pristine. "Papa?!" she calls, voice cracking. "Where -?!"

_Pok!_

Another sound like a gunshot. Sari flinches, claps her hands over her audial fins, and stares wide-eyed down the street. Her eyes burn, and her spark won't stop thumping a million kilometers an hour, and she _doesn't know where she is_ , or who those people are, or how to get home from here.

Her eyes start to burn and fizzle in earnest. But she's – she's not a protoform anymore. She's not supposed to cry. Sari screws her eyes shut for a second and snaps her visor down before opening them again. Gulping, she looks around for any sign of an entrance to a vent system, but there's nothing obvious.

It'll be okay. She just has to be sneaky! Assess the situation. Figure out if there are any Decepticons here, and whether they can be trusted or if she just needs to steal their stuff and find Scorponok on her own.

She'll be fine! Ducking her head so that her face doesn't show as much, Sari pulls her wings in tight and hugs the wall as she creeps toward the group of mechs in the distance. She's not quite the right yellow to blend in, but it's better than nothing. Occasionally she passes beside a building that doesn't have an overhanging lip, so that the sky yawns overhead, weirdly empty. She flits past the gaps as fast as she can, sprinting on her toes so she makes less noise. She can see the floating, flashing signals for airway traffic, but nobody's there to use them. A couple boxy flying things with lenses and grabby claws drift overhead, but they're tiny, and move in perfectly straight lines like a grid formation, and Sari doesn't think they're alive.

When she gets closer to the underpass, she slows wayyy down, one hand pressed to the wall as she scans the circle of mechs with her visor's extra stuff. From a distance, Sari thought they looked like Cybertronians: every one of them is bigger than she is, which is normal, and they have the right armor plating and biolights and seams.

But none of them have faces – just flat screens.

And all of them are carrying weapons.

[Everything is fine,] their faces say, the glyphs changing at the same time as the giant billboard screens mounted on the side of the skyscrapers overhead. They're standing around a pile of metal, some facing inward and some outward, on guard.

It takes Sari another second to realize that the pile is a bunch of _bodies_. Sparks spit from the twisted wreckage where their heads used to be. As she watches, one of the flatheads drags another body out of the underpass's shadows and adds it to the pile. It leaves a sparse trickle of bright pink blood in its wake.

[Take pride in being a means to an end,] the flatheads all flash at each other. Some of them have straighter posture than others – a couple are oddly slumped, their shoulders stilted, and hold their weapons too close as they point their screens at nothing in particular.

A shrill whistle shrieks right beside Sari's audial. She gasps and flinches away, spark in her throat, and finds herself staring into the center of a cycling lens. One of the flying things from overhead. Its lens zooms in on her.

Very carefully, Sari tries to poke it to point away from her. But the damage is done – when she ducks underneath the heavy, floating camera, she freezes again as three of the flatheads zero in on her with eerily blank blue screens. She backs up hastily but trips over her own feet. The floating camera turns to follow her, and there's something horrible about how the flatheads and the camera both look just as dead and expressionless as they fan out around her.

They're on a street, but no one's driving. There's no traffic at all. That's not how streets work, right?

Sari wobbles internally, and blinks her eyes hard until they stop burning.

[Smile! Today is a good day!] the flathead on the right displays as it tilts its head toward her. [Smile!]

She's too scared to smile. The unrelenting stares and the harsh light as several roving spotlights shift from the pile of bodies to hang over her head make her feel exposed. Her legs shake a little as she forces her knees to bend, and she searches the flat screens around her with rising panic as she looks for some sign of familiarity.

[It is an offense to tamper with the recently recalled. A harvester unit will be along shortly,] the flathead on the left flashes, with sternly underlined glyphs. It keeps striding forward, so that Sari's forced to stumble back again. It doesn't seem satisfied with knocking her back, though.

Instead, without warning, the flathead stiffens. The screen flashes red, the words rapidly unspooling from the center. [Unregistered alternate mode detected.]

Another flash of red. [Severe anatomical aberrations detected. Organic contamination detected.]

Sari stutters backward one last time, as the circle of flatheads tightens around her. More and more of those flying cameras leave their grid pattern to circle overhead, all of them staring at her as she presses her hands to her chest in trembling fists. "M-me?" she asks. She wishes so badly that she were taller; it feels like everyone is bearing down on her, their not-faces angry and red. The rest of the flatheads stalk away from the pile by the underpass, their screens orange and yellow and red.

Her cheeks burn just as hard. She needs to – she needs to -

Finally, the central mech raises a finger and points. [Outlier detected. Detain. Evaluate. Purge.]

Every single face flashes. [Purge.]

\- she needs to run.

Sari bolts. The two mechs on either side underestimated just how small and quick she is – she dives between their reaching hands. The flying cameras scream a group siren that echoes as more distant cameras pick up the alarm and rush to join them. Sari feels something streak past her, and another round cracks against the ground under her heels, and ohhhh no. They're _shooting_ at her.

"Aaaaaah!" Sari yells. She's fast, but their legs are stupidly long! She pelts down the street, straining her lungs to put some distance between her and them, and then launches herself, half-tripping, half-falling, into the air. It takes a clumsy sec for her legs to snaps together and her feet to magnetize, but her wing fans keep her aloft until the thrusters finally ignite, and she blasts off in a wild, spiraling arc.

She never knows what to do with her hands. Sticking them out to either side like her wings only works when she's hovering in place, really. There doesn't really seem to be a place for them _to_ go, so she just tucks them in tight, clamped down on her own collar armor, and squints her eyes against the thin current of air that sneaks up under her visor as she peels away down the street. Without her mask, her lips keep wobbling apart, too, and she wishes she were a grown up already! This is dumb!

The ground-bound flatheads fall behind as Sari wrenches her feet apart and taps them together to kick the thrusters into high gear. But the cameras tear after her in a swarm. For a sec Sari tries to straighten out her legs and wiggle her ailerons so she can fly in a straight line, but her wild arc sends her veering out of the roadway and spinning in between the buildings. Some of the cameras smash into the buildings as they come after her, leaving broken windows and clouds of billowing smoke.

…Sounds good! Sticking her tongue out, Sari flings herself in another direction. She almost runs face first into a walkway between two cylindrical buildings and overcorrects, diving down at top speed. She's never had this much space to fly in before! The cameras keep coming, but more and more of them smack into corners or crash into walkways and windows as she careens wildly through the air. This isn't so hard!

A loud blip overhead.

Sari barrel rolls under a walkway just in time to see a pair of jets bearing down on her. The cameras scatter to either side to clear the way.

She whips around, scanning the airway. All the traffic indicators are yelling [STOP] in all caps, which doesn't help very much with figuring out where to go! Sari swings left hard, and shoots through a hexagonal tunnel through a wide skyscraper that's lit by tiny white overhead lights with short stretches of darkness. When she glances back she sees the jets ploughing after her, the light flickering over them as they pick up speed.

 When she looks forward _again_ , there's two more jets waiting for her at the end of the tunnel.

If they expect her to stop, they're wayyy overestimating her ability to brake on short notice. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Sari screams, and the waiting fliers realize their mistake at the last second.

She covers her face and pulls up, legs tucked into her stomach, and hits the leading edge of one jet's wing like a tiny cannonball. It knocks the air out of her in a whoosh, with a bruising pain all along her stomach as she flips over the wing and pinwheels through the air. One thruster cuts out slightly, and the uneven thrust sends her cartwheeling downward, reeling, as she blinks back the blurriness in her eyes so she can _see_ where she's going. Down, mostly, 'cause her stomach hurts too much to uncurl, but all she sees when she looks down is a mass of layers, roads and roads and buildings on buildings, overlapping in a golden crisscross.

There. A gap, along the underside of a street corner. Sari forces her feet back together with a wince and dives for it with her arms outstretched. Three of the four jets are hot on her tail, but they peel away as she shoots through the opening at top speed. She knocks into something that clips the tops of her finials and jostles her right knee.

The next five minutes are spent crashing blindly through the pipes and cables that crawl through the underside of the layer. Sari runs out of momentum, kicking her thrusters off, and starts climbing through the tangled mess. Her eyes adjust to the dark after a sec, and she can make out the faint, ghostly outlines of the bumps and pipes between her and a thin rectangle of light, a hundred meters below.

It's so dusty. Bleh. Seems like no one's done maintenance down here in a long time.

After fifteen minutes of navigating by touch, she's out. Her stomach is one big wince as she climbs out and plops down on the sidewalk. She's come out alongside another street, but this time the spotless gold shine's kinda worn off – Sari can see a lot further, the buildings smaller, greyer, and sometimes boarded up with metal shutters and stained with rust. The roads look less cared for, too: covered in debris and trash and shattered glass that collects in the corners.

Even worse, she spies another body without a head, on the other side of the street. It's just…laying there, discarded and forgotten, like Brother when he's playing dead too well. Some kind of mechanical thing on four legs noses at the body.

She hobbles away from the opening. When she looks up, she sees the city shining overhead, looming over the rundown borough like one big spotlight. Ginormous billboards a quarter of the size of the skyscrapers tilt down from the outer walls, so that the giant announcements glare down at everyone. [You are our eyes. We are your eyes.]

Movement in the sky makes her twitch, and Sari scrambles back into the narrow ledge as a bunch of cameras spread out into the air. Here, without all the lights, they almost blend in against the stars.

Sari rubs her arms. It's colder out here. Instead of standing, she rolls back, her belly complaining as she curls up against the wall. The air here's the same as on the ship, but she can't help taking shallow breaths, trying to avoid aggravating the deep bruise. She hugs her knees so her feet won't stick out from under the ledge as she waits for the flying cameras to pass by.

How is she supposed to find Papa here? With all these screens and cameras, she feels like there are eyes glued to the back of her head. If everyone tries to chase her and shoot her on sight…

"Where did you go?" Sari mumbles into her knees. "Where am I?"

If Scorponok didn't come with her, he might still be stuck on the ship. He could be a bajillion light years away, surrounded by enemies, and she'll never get home again.

Sore all over and scared, Sari hugs her knees harder and sends a signal for her visor to go back up so she can cry without getting it all wet. Sobbing makes her stomach hurt more, but once she starts hiccupping she can't make it stop.

A light tapping sound forces her to look up, her eyes fizzy and sticky with pinkish tears. The animal pauses halfway across the street, one paw raised midstep and its big, angular ears perked up. Its narrow muzzle tilts curiously to the side as it watches her with big red optics. Wide, bristly plates of teal-grey armor cover most of its body. When Sari just hiccups, frozen, it trots the rest of the way up to her and sits, its slim paws tucked in tight as it sniffs curiously at the wet sparks on her face.

And deep inside Sari, some ancient instinct stirs.

"…Puppy?" she asks, sniffling.

The puppy's tail thumps against the ground. Overwhelmed, Sari throws her arms around its bristly neck and buries her face in its ruff. The tail lashes for a sec before subsiding. Sari cries until her face is fizzy mess, and the urge to sob wrings itself out.

She wipes her face off on the back of her arm, blinking until she thinks it's okay to put the visor back down. She swipes her palm under her eyes once more, then pulls back from the puppy with a snuffling hiccup.

The second she lets go, the puppy bounds away. Sari startles and reaches after it. "H-hang on!"

The animal stops partway down the street, and looks back at her expectantly. Sari hesitates – but then the puppy wags its tail again, waiting.

She stumbles after it on clumsy feet.

-

She follows the puppy all the way under the city.

It takes a lot more climbing in the dark, and wriggling through spaces that would be too small and squished for mechs bigger than her or the puppy. The puppy moves with perfect surety, leading her first to another half-concealed opening in a metal side street a few blocks away, and then further down, into a warren of abandoned city layers, and then into rougher tunnels that look like they formed out of the metal naturally. Occasionally something damp drips from the stalactites, and the puppy leads her through deep puddles by bounding over outcroppings while Sari tromps through puddles up to her stomach. The pain's almost forgotten, just a mild burn in her muscles as she chases after it.

Down is safe. If Papa _is_ here, and still injured, he'd go into burrows just like this.

Finally, the puppy leads her through a stretch of dry, high caverns, and up to a panel in the wall of a narrow tunnel. It rises on its hind legs and paws at the hatch with a yelp, and continues to scratch at the metal as Sari catches up, curious.

Then, without warning, the hatch swings open. Sari backpedals, arms wheeling for balance, as a gold and white mech leans out the opening in the wall, their gold visor alarmingly bright after so long in the caves. They peer down with a smile before resetting their optics behind the visor, blinking down at Sari and the puppy. "What's this, what's this?" the mech sings. They tug a torch out of their subspace and flick it on, angling a cone of ultraviolet light down on them. "Dominus? Who have you brought home today?" They scan Sari again. "…Oh no. You _are_ non-standard, aren't you?"

"W-who are you!" Sari demands. When in doubt, Papa always says to take the initiative.

The mech hesitates, then smiles and gives a tiny bow, the best they can manage when they're bent over in a tunnel already. "I? Resonance." They tap a panel on their chest, and a very familiar symbol transforms out from behind a panel of armor. It's a weird orange-red, but Sari would know the angular, pointy Decepticon symbol anywhere. "We? We're the Underside."

Then they duck back into the tunnel, snapping the UV light off as they make room.

Sari looks down. The puppy looks back up. She's struck, abruptly, by the similarity between its pointy face and the badge. It's only from a certain angle, but –

The puppy leaps up, digging in with its claws to hop into the hatch opening. Then, in a flurry of plating, it transforms into a tiny mech, maybe half again as tall as her, who reaches back down with a rueful smile on his face. "My apologies," he says, in a deep voice. "You seemed a little lost, yet I couldn't break cover. Welcome to the last safe haven on Cybertron."

Sari stares, mouth slightly open. Then she shakes her head hard. "…'Kay. Thank you," she says, sheepishly. She shakes her wings out and gives herself a boost with her fans so she can reach his hand, and he helps her the rest of the way up.

The tunnel's big enough that both of them can walk standing up. Resonance hums as they lead the way, down a sloping incline to another hatch. This one has more security. "Company," Resonance sings out, after they and Dominus scan themselves in. "Fortress, would you be a dear and come check them out?"

Sari drops out of the hatch, and into a small city. The massive, hollow cavern arches up high overhead. It has a smooth, shallow floor, and wide, squat grey buildings bunch in around a maze of uneven streets that bend to follow the curve of the floor. Every other street light is ultraviolet, painting the streets an iridescent purple. Unlike the city above, there are people _everywhere_ ; mechs in all shapes and sizes - some eyeless, some with maskplates that cover their whole face and optics.

A huuuuge mech – even bigger than Papa – comes forward, his red optics scarily stern as he frowns down at Sari. Sari hunches her shoulders and folds her arms under the scrutiny. He's got the same off-color badge as Resonance. That must mean something, right? She's a Decepticon, too.

"Nothing," he says at last, glancing at Resonance and Dominus. "Nothing at _all_. Where did you find them?"

Dominus rests a hand on Sari's shoulder. "Running from sky-spies, in the wake of a recall. They seemed distraught."

Fortress's face screws up in a deeper frown. "Risky."

Dominus shrugs, his optics twinkling with mirth. "It always is. We brought you in, didn't we?"

Fortress sighs and rubs his brow, but lets Sari pass when Dominus guides her onto the main road. Before they make it more than a few meters, though, Dominus's long ears perk up once more; he stops and rises on the balls of his feet to search over the crowd.

"Is Dommy back?" someone calls. Fortress waves a hand over the crowd, and Sari sees another small mech pushing his way through and under the crowd, his wide black shoulders ducking and weaving as he catches sight of them and makes a beeline for Dominus. The camera mounted on the side of his head only zooms in on her for a sec before he snatches Dominus's free hand. "You're gonna want to see this. Something's broadcasting on all channels," he says, waving down Fortress.

Sari tags along, keeping her head down. The crowd splits to let Fortress through, which makes it easier for her to stick close. Up ahead, in a break between the apartments carved out of the cavern wall, there's a wide screen mounted over a terminal, with a couple smaller screens hung wonkily around it. A red and yellow mech with angular horns tweaks the signal array so that the fuzzy picture comes slowly into focus.  

A communications terminal. If it can send a signal, she can reach Papa.

Despite the people clustering in to get a glimpse of the screen, there's a weird clearing around a small, reddish-orange mech. He stands with his arms folded over the spark window of his chest. He's frowning up at the screen, the shape of his remarkably expressive eyebrows the closest Sari has ever seen to matching her own. Some people are watching him with wide eyes, instead of the screens.

"What does the Council want now, Rung?" Fortress asks, as their small group draws alongside him.

Rung shakes his head. His brows furrow deeper over his glasses. Sari folds her arms and pulls the same expression, fixing her eyes on the screen with her lip jutting out. "I don't think it's the Council," he says, grimly.

"I'm not having to hijack the signal from upstairs, either," the horned mech adds, as he roots around through the bottom of the terminal. "Someone wants _everyone_ tuned in to this show."

He smacks the bottom of the wide screen one last time, and the picture shunts into focus.

Sari has no idea who the scrap they're looking at. He just looks like any other person, except really shiny. He's white and silver and a little bit gold, with a long cape that sparkles behind him, gold with a rainbow sheen, the ends of the cloth looped around his wrists. A tall, pronged silver crown rests on his head. He lays one hand on the hilt of a white sword over a bright gold and blue orb mounted on the crossguard, and smiles, radiant. His eyes are full of bright, liquid light that almost burns a white hole in the image.

[People of Cybertron. At last, I return to you from the distant stars. For so many years you have worked tenaciously: refining yourselves, scouring away those [defectives] and [beasts] and [useless things] who seek to deny their own true function. Who would deny their rightful place in our Grand Machine, and who have long sought to sabotage and corrupt its vision.]

He reaches out, still smiling. Behind Sari, the crowd stirs, full of hissed whispers and growling engines.

"Fetch the excavation team," Dominus murmurs to someone on the edge of the crowd. "Tell them we need to consult Megatron."

[I come to tell you that your sacrifices and labor have not been in vain. The time has come for _all_ to fulfill their true purpose.] The speaker presses his hand to his chest, tracing the golden gear engraved in the glass over his spark. It has three circles in between the outer teeth, and one in the very center -

\- and Sari realizes that she's seen that symbol before.

The enemy inclines his head, smiling all the while. [I am Prima, Prime of Primes. I am your Architect. And through me, you shall at last realize the design of Primus.]

\---

**_We gon' burn the whole house down_ **

\---

Wheeljack wakes up.

He doesn't recognize the room at first. The walls are ivory and smooth, without the grey panels and seams of Metroplex's spartan living quarters. Six nights out of ten, he falls asleep in a bunk in the field lab, where the walls are covered in schematics and screens that hum through the night.

No screens here – only the clean walls, high ceiling, and the berth underneath him. He unfolds his hands from over his chest and sits up, feeling oddly weightless for a moment as he traces the glyphs carved into the metal of the slab.

No Starscream, either.

Wheeljack stands and scans the room again. No sign of any of his belongings, but when he reaches into his subspace he finds his personal scanner safely tucked away. He sets it to analyze his surroundings as he walks the perimeter of the room. A luminescent vine with blue stems and bulbous leaves grows in a tall pot full of metal shavings by an open balcony, its circuits growing over and down the side of the pot.

The scanner beeps at him insistently as he walks out and stares at the scene before him. He hasn't gotten where he has today by ignoring beeps, but Wheeljack finds that he can't make his hands move.

 The city spread out below the balcony is a gleaming, polished marvel: towering crystal spires; wide, clean streets with silvery circuits; fountains, including one in the square directly below him, its lotus-shaped pool rippling with water and shards of ice; skyscrapers in all shapes and sizes, gold and white and raspberry red.

All silent, empty, and still.

A Matrix the size of the moon hangs low in the brilliant clear sky, like a crystalline sun.

Huh.

Well.

Looks like he's died and gone to the Afterspark.

\---

S  
u  
c  
k  
e  
r  
s  


\- Killmaster of the High-Ceilinged Manifold, <<[cascade](https://www.homestuck.com/story/4109)>>

\---

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

\---

_A few days from now_ _(but not many)_

 

[Can you hear me?]

[It's been a long time.]

[…]

[Yes, Tempo.]

[I hear you.]

\---

_someone will remember us_

_I say_

_even in another time_

\- [Sappho of Tempo](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/762771-someone-will-remember-us-i-say-even-in-another-time), <<[the ways of the stars](http://swinburnearchive.indiana.edu/swinburne/view#docId=swinburne/acs0000001-01-i034.xml;query=;brand=swinburne)>>

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Oh look, it's those guys!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13422936/chapters/30759708)
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> /sighs deeply/ That's gonna need a sequel, huh.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](sunderedstar.tumblr.com)


End file.
